


Lanquan Li Jorn

by Fuchskreuzkraut



Category: Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
Genre: AU-ish for the last third of the movie, And it's Tiberias ... so a certain amount of bitterness and cynicism is to be expected, Crisis of Faith, Crusades, Eventual Romance, F/M, Historical Figures, Introspection, Middle Ages, Older Man/Younger Woman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25147417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fuchskreuzkraut/pseuds/Fuchskreuzkraut
Summary: The King is dead - long live the King.After Guy de Lusignan's coronation, Tiberias finds himself in a changed world. Unwilling to bend to the whims and fancies of an incapable ruler, he must fight for his rank amongst the nobles as well as the future of the kingdom - a cause he already believes half-lost. But the chessboard of Jerusalem has acquired some new strangely-shaped squares and crudely-carved figures, and somewhere between the lines, pale and unflinching, there is a girl who helped kill a king.Thus, in the midst of battle, with a waning faith and a war on the horizon, a weary old knight realises that he must learn to play the game anew.
Relationships: Tiberias/OC
Comments: 27
Kudos: 19





	1. Vae Victis - Woe to the Conquered

**Author's Note:**

> First of all: Thank you so much for finding your way here - I hope I will be able to convince you to stay a while :)
> 
> This is going to be a somewhat lengthy author’s note, so if you’re not interested in my reasons and ramblings, just skip this and scroll ahead to the actual chapter. 
> 
> Still here?  
> Okay then, hear me out. I know the concept for this story must probably sound like I hit my head a little too hard – ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ came out fifteen years ago, after all, and Tiberias is probably one of the more unpopular characters in this fandom. I mean sure, he’s _there_ , but that’s all he is: Mr Exposition, errand boy, and, when needed, punching bag for the heroes. Which is a shame, considering the historical figure he’s based on comes with a lot of interesting backstory, conflicted personal as well as political decisions, and a set of rather grey morals.  
> So I decided to give the poor boy his own story - for the sake of variety, and perhaps a tiny little bit out of spite. (Because my dumbass self could, of course, be counted on to develop a soft spot for one of the tragic side characters in the movie with literally ten minutes of screen time and basically no fanfiction to speak of.) Yes, life is hard, lol. 
> 
> A word on the direction this thing is going to take:  
> Timeline-wise, we're starting at a rather late point - right after the coronation of Guy de Lusignan (which historical accounts place around early September 1186), after both Baldwins have already died. From that point onwards, the story is going to deviate quite heavily from the plot of the movie - in an attempt to reconcile what we know of the actual historical events (think Battle of Hattin, for example, which was ridiculously quickly glossed over by Scott and will thus be expanded on here) with the characters of the film ... and my own stupid ideas. We shall see in due time if those three things mix well, I suppose =)
> 
> At any rate: I hope you'll have some fun reading this!
> 
> PS: The keen observer may have noticed the change in title. This used to be _Knight of the Mirrors_ , but _Lanquan Li Jorn_ \- which, roughly translated, means "long are the days" - actually fits this story better for two reasons. 1) It's the title of a song by Jaufre Rudel, a 12th-century troubadour who - guess what - dedicated his poetry to Countess Audierna of Tripoli, Raymond III's mother. And 2) The language Rudel wrote in is Old Occitan, which would have been the Count of Tripoli's native language. ~~Plus 3) It sounds delightfully like gibberish.~~

Music. The witches dance – and vanish.

The evening after Guy de Lusignan’s coronation, the Palace of Jerusalem quietly descends into a gloom. From out in the courtyards and some of the smaller gardens, Tiberias can hear the drunk, raucous laughter and discordant singing of the celebrating Templar knights, but in the cloisters and alleyways of the palace, the fires burn low, spitting soot and ash on the floor like a chimney in dire need of a sweeping. Although the sun has already set, the heat of the day lingers; the flagstones are still warm underneath his feet. The sensation almost puzzles him – being dragged over blazing hot coals instead, he might have felt just as much. The air is leaden with the death of a child. 

Tiberias wanders the once-familiar paths leading out of the palace like a man caught between waking and sleeping. There is a numbness to his senses, a blurry quality to everything that surrounds him that he hasn’t experienced in years: not since he was a boy, really, fifteen or sixteen, making his first kill in battle. This day, too, he feels, will mark the end of an era; and the only thing he can do is stand by and watch, his veins running with ice-water so cold he cannot even manage to tremble. 

He has been weary of court life for some time now, but never like this. Never before has there been this urgency to get away, this desire to leave behind what he once considered his sacred duty to protect. In his daze, the features of the liveried servants and lesser nobles scurrying past him take on a dream-like nature, twisting and turning in ways so utterly alien to his eyes that Tiberias quickens his pace without meaning to. Outside the palace, he nearly takes the wrong turn into the city; and it is there that Tiberias realises that within a matter of hours, Jerusalem has become a place unfamiliar to him. Even if it is just for a moment, he needs to get away. 

The thinning bustle of the city swallows him whole in an instant. Without his blue cloak and surcoat embroidered with the fivefold cross of the knights of the household, the Count of Tiberias and Prince of Galilee can walk the streets of Jerusalem largely unrecognised: In a plain dark tunic and hose, sword belt slung around his waist, he’s just another ill-shaven fellow on the wrong side of forty, soured by life in the saddle and the ugly memory of having survived too many wars. The notion makes him sigh. If only that were all he’s ever been – all he’s ever done. 

The list of his failures grows longer by the day. He couldn’t save Godfrey – stubborn old mule that he was – from that blasted arrow in France, he could save neither King Baldwin from his illness nor Sibylla from Guy, and he couldn’t even save little Baldwin from the blind rage of his mother. Not rage against the child, of course – rage against God, against faith, against every power in the world that has failed to save what she held so dear. _Better feed the fire than wait for it to bite_. Sibylla has always been like that: strong-willed to the point of destruction.

 _Perhaps_ , Tiberias thinks, strangely detached, as he bends his steps towards the outer quarters of the city, _perhaps I should have stopped her. I know how Sibylla’s mind works – I could have anticipated her move. Perhaps … perhaps I could have saved that child from her folly._

But then what? Watch another boy-king grow up under the silver of a mask? Advise him, soothe him, guide him through a spider’s web of politics just to see him wither at the cusp of youth? Tiberias finds that he doesn’t have it in himself to be this cruel anymore. Not a second time. He feels tired, as of late. Tired of the games and intrigues, of the lies and the schemes, of the vanities and empty flatteries of court. He lacks the strength to bear it all a second time; to first offer one cheek, and then the other. He is no saint. He has the scars to show for it. 

The sky above Jerusalem is still streaked with the faint gold and blue of dusk at this hour, but in the nooks and crannies of the winding streets, the shadows have already settled. As he passes locked doors and firmly barred windows, Tiberias wills himself not to shiver. The city – _his_ city, the place he helped shape into its current form and defended with his blood – is dying. Little by little, life is seeping out of it, and the vultures are gathering on the horizon. For a moment, as he listens to the muffled voices and cats’ cries in the dark, he wonders what Salah ad-Din will make of it. 

_If there’s anything left for him by the time he manages to take it._ Tiberias shakes his head – troubles for another day – and hurries on. Salah ad-Din is hardly his concern anymore. Guy, for one, has never listened to the Lord Marshal in any meaningful capacity anyway and Tiberias doubts that he will begin to do so now that he is king; rather, he will probably give him some time-consuming but ultimately pointless occupation to keep him out of the way. Citing his age as the reason, most likely. He snorts derisively. And Balian … Well, Godfrey’s boy certainly has his heart in the right place, but he is as blunt and hot-headed as his father, and Tiberias doesn’t think that even a perfect knight will be able to save Jerusalem in the long run. Limping down a crooked set of stairs, too caught up in his own thoughts, he almost stumbles over a rat. 

***

The house sits at the back of an alley, half-hidden behind the branches of an old fig tree as though wary of revealing its countenance to the casual observer. If one were to ask the neighbours, they’d whisper that the old woman who used to live there was a witch – but one of the good kind, they’d say, just like the girl that took care of her until the end and now lives in that place all on her own, only a few geese and a younger brother for company. Tiberias hasn’t been here for months, but he suspects that someone of Sibylla’s must have paid the girl a visit quite recently. Not that it matters much, anymore: the damage is done, and those who remain must learn to live with the guilt or perish. 

_And besides_ , he reflects wryly, _I always seem to find my way back, somehow._

He knocks on the door like a thief in the night. 

Calling the girl his ‘mistress’ would be a blatant exaggeration. One might say they are friends, in a way; accomplices, fellow conspirators even. Isolt is one of his informants, though not much used these days, as Guy is now able to do most of his scheming and manoeuvring in broad daylight without any repercussions. But that’s what she is to him, at least officially: one of the many inconspicuous little creatures that prowl the streets of the Holy City to gather intelligence for their masters – or die trying. Thankfully enough, she’s rather persistent, this one. Tiberias has not yet had the heart to tell her that if things continue to go the way they have, she’ll likely find herself out of a job – and out of a master – rather sooner than later. 

Yes – first and foremost, they are friends. It is only on occasion that they sometimes forget themselves and become something else entirely. Tiberias doesn’t like to dwell on it. He is sure that what they are doing is some sort of sin – apart from adultery: because as cold and indifferent as she may be, he still has a wife – but then again … he is guilty of so many others that one more will hardly matter in the grand scheme of things. If he goes to Hell for this, then so be it. At least he’ll meet many old acquaintances there. 

The door doesn’t open right away. Instead, a cautious voice inquires, “Who’s there?” in a tone that tells him that she must’ve received quite a few unpleasant visitors as of late. Apparently, he isn’t the only one in Jerusalem to expect betrayal – and war – in the near future. 

“It’s me,” he says, sounding rather more gruff than he means to. 

There is a pause. She’s weighing her options, obviously, and the thought sickens him that after all this time, she might still be afraid of him. 

“Tiberias,” she says at last and opens the door. 

They haven’t seen each other in a while, and perhaps, having lost so much during the last few weeks, it shows on his face all too clearly: that he has missed her, that he has missed having anybody – anybody at all – to hold onto when the world crumbles about his ears. As a soldier, he’s half ashamed of feeling such weakness in the first place, let alone permitting someone else to look at the extent of it openly and unguarded. But it is a changed world that he finds himself in, twisted and cruel and hopelessly lonely, and if this girl sees a bit more tonight than he originally meant for her to see, then it’s just as well, he supposes. 

Tiberias is fairly sure that Isolt holds no love for him – he has, in fact, convinced himself very thoroughly that she couldn’t possibly – but he believes that she at least likes him enough to try and understand. 

If she doesn’t run from him, that is. The fear that he has called on her to reproach her for the poison business is all but written on her pale forehead. 

He shifts a bit awkwardly on his feet. “My lady, I hope I don’t –”

“No,” she says, straining to keep her voice even. “No, my lord, you don’t. I heard what happened, and I thought you might – wish for words with me. Do come in.”

Once he’s stepped over the threshold, Isolt closes the door firmly behind him, shutting the iron bolts home. In the dim light, Tiberias sees that she is hiding a knife in her left hand. _Brave girl. Foolish girl._

When she passes him in the corridor, she casts a shy glance up at him, searching for a trace of anger, perhaps, or discontent. He quietly shakes his head, although he cannot be certain whether she catches his meaning in the soot-coloured dark. 

_It’s alright_ , he wants to tell her, _don’t worry_ , but the lie refuses to pass his lips. There are other things at work far scarier than a Lord Marshal grieving the death of two kings – which, besides, has been an act of mercy in both cases. If he hasn’t already lost his position of power in the Holy City, Tiberias knows that he will very soon. He hopes that regarding recent matters, the girl won’t be as blind as to put any faith in him to turn it all around.

She’s still looking at him, though; there is something in her eyes that almost resembles concern. “My lord, are you – are you well?”

“Yes,” he says hoarsely. “Yes, of course.” 

He is well because can’t allow himself to be anything else. Not when there’s a city falling apart in his hands like a sandcastle, not with Reynald de Châtillon out there bringing about a war that they cannot win. When he died, Baldwin made him carry the sky upon his shoulders, but the responsibility is crushing him already. If there truly is a God to watch over them all, he has deserted Tiberias without a second thought. 

(Nigh on ten years spent in a Saracen prison, his youth rotting away.)  
(Being married to Eschiva of Bures, a wife he rarely sees and doesn’t love.)  
(A fall from a horse, years ago, that has left him with a crippled leg.) 

And with all the new obstacles life has thrown his way in this recently cruel twist of fate, testing his merit as though he’s some fledgeling knight-errant in an Arthurian tale, he should really be thinking of something else – but saints may forgive him, at the moment he’d like nothing better than to take that pale Flemish girl before him into his arms and forget. She’d probably even let him – wouldn’t have much of a choice in the matter, were he that kind of man – but Tiberias isn’t sure if she’d want him to. 

He forcibly jerks himself out of that fancy and huffs out a sardonic laugh at how pathetic it all is. 

_Christ Jesu_ , he thinks, in a tone not unlike Godfrey’s. _You’re getting soft in your old age._

The courtiers would mock him ruthlessly, he supposes, if they were to ever find out. He’d never hear the end of it. The Lord Tiberias – cynical misanthrope by reputation and ever-dutiful errand boy to a succession of four kings – discovered to have a mistress who is not only half his age, but also of dubious origin. As he follows Isolt into the kitchen, he can almost hear Heraclius cackling.

The room is bare, but well-kept; plaster walls crumbling, a tattered rug on the floor. She puts ale and dates on the table without asking and bids him sit down, settling across from him like she has been invited to an official hearing at his office. Her movements are hasty and skittish and almost hurt to look at, but he cannot turn his eyes away: trying to find something, anything that has remained unchanged … to no avail. Isolt stares at her freckled hands, obviously expecting him to strike up a conversation, to start questioning her – but as much as he wracks his brain, Tiberias cannot think of anything to say, let alone remember why he decided to come here in the first place. She is just as much a stranger to him – and he to her – as everybody else in this newly-made world. 

The girl is far too young for an old dog like him, in any case – she has scarcely more than twenty summers, if he recalls correctly – and the whole scene feels rather like one of Sibylla’s courteous _lais_ gone wrong. He wouldn’t pass for a charming, radiant _Tristan_ to this _Yseult_ even in the fading light; gaunt and grim as he is, he has always resembled a wolf, does so more than ever now that he’s greying at the temples, and the scar that mars the right side of his face doesn’t make him seem any less crooked. She’s not much of a beauty either, brown hair cut short like that of a squire, too tall for a girl and too gawky for a lady, freckles like stellar constellations on her skin. The poets would have them relegated to the sidelines, no doubt – either evil or evoking pity; losing, at any rate; not winning others’ affections or God’s grace. 

_Perhaps this is it_ , Tiberias muses. Perhaps he’s been marked for disfavour from the very beginning, and there’s no use fighting this sense of inevitable dread that overcomes him whenever he stares out ahead into a comfortless future. 

He would have liked to see her laugh again – but alas. 

Wincingly – the ill-sorted leg be damned – he stands up to leave, dragging his feet over to the door. “I had better …”

“Are you not angry, my lord?”

“Hm?” He turns, eyebrows raised. 

“For the poison,” she adds quietly. “You must know that it was I who sold it. When they came to me, I didn’t think – I didn’t know that the Princess Sibylla …” Her voice falters. “I – I helped kill a child. A king. I thought you would –”

“Would _what_ , girl?” To his surprise, he feels something like a smile creasing his features. “Throw you into the dungeons? Whip you? Torture you? Make you live off of rats and stale water for a year?” 

“Something like that, yes.” She smiles back at him, still a tad feebly, but with a flicker of warmth that hasn’t been there before; the tension between them dispelled. “Tiberias – “

He limps over to her and tentatively places a hand on her shoulder. “Do you truly trust my judgement so little?”, he asks. “Do you trust _me_ so little to think that I wouldn’t know a good act from a bad one? That I would fault you for something that was, in the end, beyond your control?”

“But the new king –”

“– would have reigned nonetheless, even if the boy had lived.” Tiberias gives a brief shrug, shocking even himself with this show of studied indifference. “There is no evading Guy de Lusignan, it seems – braggart scoundrel that he is. A _kingdom of conscience_ – ha! A kingdom of condescension, more like.” He snorts. “Not that it is going to matter for much longer.”

“No,” he says, gently but firmly, when Isolt tries to protest. “If anything, I should thank you. Now all of us know where we stand, at least. And had it not been for you, little witch, who knows if the boy could have died as painlessly as he has.” 

With some effort, he swallows the dire predictions already lurking at the tip of his tongue and tries to shove the memories of better days back to where they came from. 

(Baldwin at Montgisard – young, strong, the image of a king.)  
(Baldwin at thirteen, winning a game of chess against William of Tyre.)  
(Sibylla with her first husband, dancing, twirling, skipping off into the night.)  
(Godfrey and he on horseback, racing each other through the white-hot sands of Ibelin.) 

The past is with him there in that room, seeping through the cracks in the shutters like a breeze of cool night air. Tiberias has never regarded himself as a man prone to melancholy, but all the good things have come to an end so swiftly that he doesn’t rightly know where to turn to anymore. Every prospect seems bleak, every faith an illusion. 

“It was mercy,” he repeats his thoughts from earlier that evening, more to himself than to anyone else. “Our world will move on without them.” 

The words sound hollow even to his own ears. 

Isolt lets her gaze drop to the floor, absently tracing a wax stain on the rug with her left foot. “Still,” she says softly. “I’m sorry it had to come to that.”

“Yes.” Tiberias closes his eyes, his sun-burnt heart aching silently beneath his ribs. “Yes, I am, too.”

 _A kingdom of conscience._ It has breathed for but such a little while that it might as well never have been alive at all.


	2. Malum In Se - Wrong in Itself

There is a small garden attached to the house that hides its face behind a fig tree, and it is there that they eventually find themselves, sitting side by side on the rough-hewn stone steps to the backyard and staring out into the night. It is blissfully quiet. No scurrying servants or squires hitting each other with wooden swords in the palace cloisters; only the occasional pigeon’s coo and a memory of faraway voices. From time to time, a gust of wind rustles the leaves of unseen herbs somewhere in the darkness and Tiberias catches a whiff of something – sage, chamomile, boneset, perhaps – and God knows what else the girl grows on that dry patch of land. He is a soldier, after all, not an apothecary; even in broad daylight, he wouldn’t be able to tell most of those plants apart. Maybe a few of the ones commonly used for treating wounds, yes. But the others – the poisonous ones … 

Saints be good, he needs to learn to forget. 

_Godfrey had it easy_ , Tiberias finds himself thinking rather gloomily – and certainly not for the first time. The lucky bastard managed to die right before affairs in the kingdom began to take a turn for the worse, and he managed to die at a reasonable age, too: not quite young anymore, having lived a full life, but not yet riddled with the ailments of old age either; dying, at that, with the knowledge that there would be someone to carry his name, to inherit his estates, and – God willing – to continue his line. _Balian. The son he always dreamt of._

The Baron of Ibelin occasionally became a bit wistful when in his cups, and Tiberias cannot even begin to recall all the instances that he heard Godfrey rave incoherently about the son he could have had, that illegitimate child of his and some poor blacksmith’s wife that he left to grow up in the cold climate of northern France. What he would have taught him, the swords he would have had made for him, the girls he would have told him to stay away from … the list went on and on. Normally, Tiberias let him talk and merely nodded and listened until Godfrey felt better, but on occasion, the incessant howling got to his head and made him say things he often came to regret the next morning. 

“You don’t even know if the boy’s still alive, Godfrey,” he remembers himself arguing tiredly one night, trying to be the voice of reason to his friend’s blind melancholy. “And even if he is – who is to say that he would make a good knight? Hm? Perhaps he’s sickly, or a half-wit, or –”

“He’s my son!” Godfrey roared at him, getting to his feet so quickly that he knocked over both his chair and the wine-pitcher. “You have no right – You don’t know how it is! You’re – you’re just green with envy because the only things that you have to your name are a few piles of rocks and … and that shrewd political ambition of yours!”

That had shocked Tiberias into silence. Most of the details of that wretched, wretched evening have thankfully escaped him by now, but he still remembers how _cold_ he felt in that moment, staring at Godfrey with too-wide eyes and shaking from head to toe. 

Because his friend was right, of course – he still is. That nebulous spectre of the child that could have been is still better than anything Tiberias has managed to acquire for himself in all those years: a bunch of lands and titles mostly through marriage, along with an unpleasant wife and four stepsons that were already too old to take eagerly to a surrogate father who had just spent ten years in a Saracen prison. Not that he’s made much of an effort to change that, either. 

Nowadays, he mostly tries to stay away: from the fortress of Tiberias and the dusty hills and plains of Galilee, from the nephews almost tripping over each other in their haste to throw themselves at his feet like salivating hounds. Oh, they know how to mince their words better than a lai-maker's whore, but the only thing they come for is lands – _his_ lands, because once he’s gone, they will all have a claim to them, as he has no heir. He told the last one – a bit acidly, perhaps – to be so kind as to wait until he looked just a little more _dead_. 

_Squabbling fish-wives, the lot of them._ Tiberias grimaces, exasperated, and rubs the bridge of his nose. Briefly, he contemplates telling Isolt about it, thus forcing himself to see the ridiculous side of things, but he is not entirely certain whether he hasn’t mentioned it to her already, some brighter, faraway day before. She looks concerned enough as it is. He’d rather not have her believe that in addition to all this misery, he might also have lost his mind – repeating the same old stories over and over like some toothless dotard, getting past events muddled up with the present. 

Although … judging by the slightly accusatory glance she directs his way, he can’t rid himself of the sneaking suspicion that she must have been talking to him for quite some time now, with him failing to notice her altogether in his brooding. 

_What a fine friend I make her_ , Tiberias scoffs cynically to himself. _Either gaping at her like a love-sick tomcat or ignoring her very existence because I can’t for half an hour let go of issues that I am unable to solve one way or the other._

He gives her what he hopes will pass for an apologetic smile in the darkness. “Blood of Christ, girl, I –”

“It’s no matter, my lord.” Isolt shakes her head, dismissing his awkward attempts at an explanation for what they are: unnecessary. It would be a lie to say that she knows him well; but considering how little she knows of him, it is all the more remarkable how much she is able to divine almost by instinct. That’s why she makes a good spy: For her scant years, she’s an apt judge of people – sometimes uncomfortably so. 

The first time he met her, spring 1183: acacia trees in full flower throughout the city. The old witch was a familiar face at this point, on the Lord Marshal’s payroll as a dealer of poisons and poultices practically ever since Tiberias had been installed in the office. Nonetheless, he’d been wary, at least initially, when she’d gestured at him with her herb-stained claw to follow her deeper into the house: _Come, meet my new apprentice, she’s going to take over the business after I am gone._ He had followed as though he was being led by a string, and then a girl hurried in from the garden, hands and knees smeared with dirt, stopping dead in her tracks as she set eyes on the tall, limping stranger in uniform bearing the coat-of-arms of the King. For a moment, she stared at him. Cautiously, ay, fear written all over her pale complexion so easily burnt by the sun; but not flinching, not cowering, simply meeting his gaze with an iron resolve that said, _Yes, I am afraid, but under all your titles and armour, Lord Marshal, you are only a man, and I will not cringe in the dust before you._

They didn’t properly talk to each other until much later – when the old woman fell ill and Isolt came to his offices, ruffled and pale and obviously at her wits’ end, while he had half-forgotten about her already. _I’m not as good as my mistress yet_ , she said bluntly, that day. _I may make a mistake. She says that being acquainted with a Lord Marshal was useful to her in many ways – so tell me, my lord, of what use can I be to you?_ She didn’t budge, didn’t fidget, but there was a quiet horror in her words at what he might ask of her that evoked a surge of sympathy in Tiberias. _I shan’t cause you any harm, girl_ , he told her kindly. _I’m an old dog with no bite, if anything. Let us find out what you can do._

He took her into the courtyard to see if she could keep count of the clerks and scribes hurrying about with books and scrolls tucked under their arms, the knights and squires arriving on horseback, the monks and traders with their donkeys and screaming mules. He asked her to observe the horses and tell him which ones needed shoeing, to look at the friars’ and scribes’ hands and ascertain which one they wrote with. She said she only spoke two languages – lowland Flemish and Norman-French – but was willing to learn more, and when she admitted, almost shamefacedly, that she also knew how to read those two, the deal was sealed. She’d be a pair of eyes and ears for him in the Holy City, he’d shield her business from the arm of the law as far as he could and find her brother – who was thirteen at the time; some five or six years younger than she – a good place as a squire that wouldn’t turn him into a mindless brute.

 _He’s a younger son_ , Isolt said. _Low Flemish gentry, my lord; you wouldn’t know the name. He came here to make his fortune, but now no knight will take him on because we had contacts in the Holy Land only through my husband, who was lost to the sea._ – _I’m sorry_ , he said, and meant it. But she only shook her head. _We didn’t know each other long enough._

_A kingdom of younger sons._ That is what Godfrey used to say. _Land for the landless, names for the nameless, and – perhaps one day, between Salah ad-Din and the King – a better world for us all._

Tiberias is glad that his old friend doesn’t have to see what has become of it, his _better world_ ; that he died with that vision still right before his eyes, soft and unblemished, fruit ripening on the trees and the sun always rising in the east. 

It is a pity that the girl only ever saw so little of it before it all started to fall to pieces.

***

As the breeze picks up again, strangely crisp for a balmy September night in the Levant, it sends a shiver down his spine. Things are moving in the dark: he of all people knows that Jerusalem never sleeps. The sky above has now blackened altogether like a tapestry hung too close to a flame, stars like pinpricks appearing in its fabric; the whole city a mosaic of shadow. 

“I’m sorry,” he says once more, not quite knowing what he means by it, exactly. 

He hears Isolt take a deep breath before she turns to him again – voice grave and quiet, hazel eyes pensive. “This is not good-bye, is it?”

She makes it sound very much like it is. 

Tiberias knits his dark brows together. “Why would you say that?”

“Well,” she says, fiddling with a loose thread on her sleeve, “you’re hardly going to stay, are you? In Jerusalem, I mean. Not in the long run. Things have changed, my lord, and not exactly for the better. Certainly not for you.”

 _No_ , something echoes hollowly in his mind. _Certainly not for me._ After Humphrey, that wretched cringeling, showed Guy the white feather at the first sign of trouble, his friends at court have become few and far between, and old slights to fellow nobles will undoubtedly be dragged to the surface again once they realise that he is in no position to challenge authority any longer. In all of his loyalty to Baldwin, Tiberias fears he has outmanoeuvred himself. The factions have broken up like smashed pottery, the rivalry for the crown is ended: now you either stand with the King or alone against him. 

“Come, girl,” he says. “Be frank with me. What have you heard? What do the people whisper on the streets of the Holy City?” 

“I haven’t heard much, my lord – not as much as I could’ve, at least. I’ve tried to … keep my head down, mostly, waiting for someone to – to trace everything back to me.” Isolt looks a bit sheepish, and then, sensing his faint amusement as he thinks of all the confusion earlier this night, she allows herself a small smile – gone as fast as winter sunlight. 

“The city is divided,” she continues carefully. “Just as much as the nobles, one hears. Some lament the new order, others … welcome it. Some think that King Baldwin – Queen Sibylla’s brother, not her son – in his illness was blessed by God, but others insist that he was weak and incapable and … and that the leprosy was a punishment for his sins. They believe that with Guy and the Templars in charge, the Kingdom of Jerusalem will rise to a new golden age of Christianity. No more mingling with infidels, no more cowering before them – just … just _wiping them off the face of the earth_ , as is God’s will.” She shudders. “People are parroting this all over the city.”

Tiberias gives a mirthless laugh. “That’s the Templars for you. Ever so diplomatic – but with ample connections. No wonder Guy and my lord of Ridefort love each other so well.”

 _God’s will – my left foot._ But it is no surprise, really. Gerard has always been a bloodthirsty ferret, eager to stir up a fight wherever he can and watch the destruction unfold with a hungry twitch of his lips. He is, perhaps, the one man at court who hates Tiberias the most: an old affront, years ago; the hand of a wealthy heiress promised to Ridefort in marriage but, in the end, granted to another. A carved wooden chest, delivered to the Lord Marshal’s doorstep by servants of the grateful merchant, containing no less than the weight of the bride in gold – the beginnings of a shady reputation. 

Ridefort, naturally inclined to gossip and by then positively foaming at the mouth, wasted no time in spreading the tale. Nowadays, as Grand Master of the Templars, he still brings it up whenever he spies an opportunity to undermine Tiberias’ authority. “That man is susceptible to bribery!” he’ll spit and point his finger at him in front of all the knights and barons at court, wet blue eyes gleaming with malice. “He’s proven it in the past – how are we to believe a single word that comes out of his mouth? How are we to say where his loyalties lie, when he’s friends with the Saracens and so readily swayed by material wealth?” 

Over the years, Tiberias has taken to merely gritting his teeth and waiting as calmly as he can until the storm has passed. There is no use in denying it: the breach of trust itself happened, even though Ridefort has the intentions behind it all backwards. It has happened, the dye is cast; and because Tiberias has decided – long ago, in a dingy cell in Aleppo, grains of dust and lemon-coloured light filtering in through a tiny barred window overhead – that he would rather live with men than kill them, live with them he must, come good or ill. Although he is increasingly running out of reasons why he should continue to do so when half of Outremer simply wants to see blood, when Jerusalem’s walls are crumbling like the Tower of Babel and kings have the lifespan of twitching mayflies. 

_Still_ , he thinks grimly, _I wouldn’t have given the girl to you, Gerard. Not for all the coins in your vaults. She would have been sorry to have you – even if that little evil might have left me with fewer enemies._

A burst of agitated voices, somewhere far in the distance. Tiberias feels himself tense at the sound like a blind man in a strange place; the inky blackness around him unyielding to the forlorn straining of his eyes and ears. 

“There is something else, my lord.” Isolt hesitates, waiting for him to find his way back to the present. She breathes in a little nervously. “They … they say that _you_ wanted to become king, my lord. That you merely chose to support Princess Isabella’s claim because – because the other nobles wouldn’t follow you.”

“Hah,” he says. “Yes. I suppose they would say that. Don’t believe everything you hear, girl.”

“But you _could_ have been king, my lord, could you not? When Baldwin was still alive, you were what – fourth in line? Fifth?”

“Third”, he says flatly. “And don’t call me that.”

“Don’t call you what?”

“ _My lord._ ” He turns to face her, raising his hand to touch her freckled cheek, but then thinks better of it; she’d hardly like him to, and he doesn’t want to frighten her. Instead, Tiberias merely regards her closely, his voice as gentle as he can make it after decades of barking orders and arguing out cases at the _Haute Cour_. “No more of that icy politeness between us, little witch, if I may ask that of you. Not … not when we’re alone.”

The girl’s features are enshrouded in shadow, rendering it impossible for him to guess what phantoms stir inside her head. _Now you’ve ruined it_ , he thinks miserably, _overstepped all the boundaries that you shouldn’t have dreamt of crossing in the first place …_ The cicadas sing on the turrets and roofs of Jerusalem. Bloody martyrdom of priests, he isn’t good at this.

(Though when her fingers eventually brush against his in the darkness, he finds himself unable to ignore the recklessly optimistic thump of his heart.)

“It’s not true, is it,” Isolt says at length. “What they’re … insinuating. That you were after the crown.”

With ironic incredulity, Tiberias quirks an eyebrow at her, almost making her laugh. “Can you truly picture _me_ as king? Trying to look benevolent all day, signing every document put before me meekly as a child for fear of uprisings or war – and never leaving the palace except to ride into battle? Strutting about like a peacock, followed by a gaggle of guards and gaping fools, hm? Do you think I would be a suitable choice for that?” 

“In all honesty – no.” The girl, to his relief suddenly very much at ease, struggles to bite back a grin. “And I certainly wouldn’t wish it upon you,” she adds. “God knows you’re grouchy enough as it is.” Her smile grows wider at that, more unabashed, daring him to defy her, and he thinks, _there it is – that’s what I was trying to find all day._

For the sake of the pretence, though, Tiberias keeps a straight face. 

“Insolent little witch,” he mutters darkly. “Telling the Lord Marshal he’s ‘grouchy’ … the audacity! The impertinence –”

But she knows him well enough to recognise the hint of mirth in his voice that he cannot quite hide, and gingerly leans against his shoulder, shaking with silent giggles. It has happened before, this breach of propriety, this flicker of trust between them; but his treacherous old heart skips a beat all the same when her knees and elbows touch his and she nestles her head in the bony crook of his neck. As he puts an arm around her, gently, cautiously drawing her closer, Tiberias wonders when he last felt so light-headed. The aftermath of Baldwin’s death, the divide amongst the nobles, the illness of the boy … it must be weeks, months ago, and he realises with a start that he cannot even remember what the reason for it was. Perhaps too much wine. 

***

He’s about to offer some more dry remarks on the subject when there’s a clatter in the house. A slamming door, a curse, the shuffling of heavily booted feet. 

_Soldiers’ feet._

They are out of each other’s arms in an instant: Isolt scampering up the steps to the back door and Tiberias hobbling after her, his hand flying to the hilt of his sword – which isn’t there, because he’s left the blasted thing on the kitchen table where he doesn’t trip over it. Cursing himself for all kinds of fool, he reaches for the dagger instead, which is thankfully still in its place. 

But – _Christ Jesu, how did they ever find out. The poison, the girl … Why would they even care?_ From the clang and the clatter of things being thrown to the floor – pots and pans, if he’s any judge; softer things that make less jarring noises; a chair – he’s unable to tell how many there are. Two? Three? Five? And who would think to send them, on a night like this: with half of Jerusalem celebrating, and the other half wishing to crawl under a rock and wait for the nightmare to pass? _Unless … unless it’s Sibylla who’s behind all this._ Tiberias shudders at the thought. She has always been unpredictable; has she turned on him now that she is queen, wanting to wash her son’s blood from her hands by silencing all possible witnesses? 

It’s a ghastly idea, but not improbable. 

He catches up to Isolt in the hallway, grabbing her by the collar of her dress like she’s a disobedient page to stop her from venturing any further into the house. “Stay back.” 

The girl struggles against his grasp for a moment, stubborn thing that she is, but Tiberias doesn’t let go; there’s still noise coming out of the kitchen, and she has nothing to protect herself except her wits and that pitiful little knife in her sleeve. If it comes to it, he knows that he won’t be able to take on three or four men-at-arms all on his own – perhaps two, if he’s lucky – but whatever happens, he’s not going to let Isolt run headlong into a blade. 

The corridor gapes before them like a black maw. There is no moon outside, and all the candles have gone out.

“Please,” he hears Isolt whisper, frantically clutching his wrist, “you can’t! If they see –”

“To Hell with them all!” he hisses. “I’m not letting you –”

Then a figure steps out of the kitchen, tall and broad and swaying slightly. Unable to identify the colours of his tunic in the darkness, Tiberias is ready to put a knife to the stranger’s throat at the first sign of hostility. But then – then the girl suddenly slips past him, and he is so surprised that he is too slow to catch her, and then – 

“Percy?” she cries. “My God, Percy, what has happened to you?”

A white cross on black ground. The garb of the Hospitallers. Her brother: whey-faced and honest and very, very tipsy. 

“I could- … couldn’t find any light,” the boy mumbles to Isolt as a means of apology, and then, catching sight of Tiberias in the shadows, he squints his eyes in growing bewilderment. “My – m’Lord Marshal? What’re you … I mean, what – what business brings you here to our – our most humble …”

Tiberias scowls at him, although he feels his aching shoulders drop with relief. No soldiers, after all; just an inebriated stripling with bruised knuckles and a bloodied nose. A tragedy all in its own right, but not one he hasn’t seen before. 

“Ah,” he says, tone as dry as parchment. “What do we have here. A squire three sheets to the wind, eh? Did someone drink you under the table, boy?” 

“Had a run-in with the Templ’rs,” the boy slurs. “Crashed one of their feasts. En- … entitled whoresons, the lot of ’em.” He puts one hand to the wall to steady himself, chainmail clinking softly as his legs wobble underneath him. 

To Tiberias’ silent amusement, Isolt looks as though she’s wishing for the earth to swallow her up. “Please do not think ill of my brother. He means no disrespect, my lord, and I promise –” she throws Percival a warning glance, “– that he shall be reprimanded accordingly.” 

The boy gazes at them blearily, trying to appear responsible but failing miserably. The image reminds Tiberias vaguely of Godfrey when he was young: red-eyed and hungover after a night out in the Armenian quarter. Strange, the things that will stick with you, even after so many years. Godfrey’s forehead glowing in the heat, spattered with blood. Godfrey teaching him a bawdy Saxon song he heard from one of his stewards. Godfrey flashing a crooked grin at him, saying, _Oh, what is it, my Count of Tripoli – are you a monk? Afraid that someone might see you laugh?_

“’m sorry, Isolt – Lord Marshal,” the boy mumbles in the here and now. “Won’t happen ‘gain, I swear.”

Tiberias forces himself not to roll his eyes. _I highly doubt that._ Though it was to be expected, after all. There has always been bad blood between the Knights Hospitaller and the Templars; whatever conflict arises in the kingdom, they are sure to be found on opposing sides. It would have been a miracle of almost biblical proportions had Guy’s coronation proved an exception to the rule. Tiberias just hopes that it’s only been the squires who scuffled amongst themselves tonight. If the actual knights have taken to fighting each other as well … God’s blood, in that case he will have a trial on his hands first thing in the morning. And a public hanging, most likely.

“You can worry about that oath once you’ve got a clear head again, boy,” he remarks sardonically, before – grudgingly – giving in to some of his more benign impulses and offering Percival his shoulder to lean on. “Come. Let’s get you to bed while you can still keep on your feet.”

Isolt stares at him as though he has truly lost his mind, this time. “Tiberias,” she says indignantly, “I can’t have the – the _Lord Marshal of Jerusalem_ haul my drunk brother up the stairs! That’s –”

“– unseemly?” he finishes her sentence, a wry smile tugging on the corner of his mouth. “Believe me, Isolt, I have handled plastered squires before. I can assure you that this one shall hardly prove any different.” 

“You truly don’t have to,” she says quietly. “I don’t want you to –”

He sighs. “Can’t you let me do this one thing for you, hm? This once?” _Because I can do so little else?_

Glancing at her face, he doesn’t wait for an answer.

The boy, in his daze, clings to him like a particularly trusting sack of flour: half-conscious and so heavy as to make Tiberias, staggering up the stairs, curse the thrice-damned leg even more. Percival has grown since he last saw him, and although the lad is still half a head shorter than him, he’s already much broader in the shoulders. Judging by the state of his hands, he has probably given the vile Templar squires as much of a beating as they have given him. 

_Oh, the recklessness of youth._ His sister is perhaps right to disapprove.

“Isolt and Percival,” Tiberias remembers teasing the girl in one of their earlier, better moments. “Pray tell me, my lady, what did your parents call your elder brother – Aglovale? Sir Lancelot?”  
(Nikolas, apparently.)  
But other than their names linking them to Arthurian knights and fair maidens in Breton fireside tales, the siblings don’t seem to have much in common. Where Isolt is dark, her brother is fair; where she is tall and gawky, Percy is sturdy and strong, and while she is cautious and wise beyond her years, the boy is as daring and blue-eyed as they come. Tiberias knows that Isolt has been fearing for her brother from the very beginning; he suspects that they don’t always get along well. 

Still, her gaze follows his every movement as he lowers Percival onto the straw-filled mattress upstairs, as though she half-expects him to drop the boy on the floor like a crate of turnips. She has lit a taper so they don’t have to fumble around in the dark; her brother, however, already passed out and snoring slightly, doesn’t even notice. The sparse light makes the cuts and blackening bruises on his milk-white skin appear deeper and darker than they really are. 

“He’ll be fine,” Tiberias says softly when he notices a fresh wave of concern wash over the girl’s features. “Young squires fight all the time. Let him sleep it off, and he’ll be as good as new. Take it from someone who knows.” 

Nevertheless, she sighs. “As long as it doesn’t get worse than this …” 

But her eyes say, _It will get worse, won’t it?_

Tiberias passes a weary hand over his face. “I don’t want to lie to you, Isolt,” he says gruffly. “If Guy doesn’t miraculously see the light, we will find ourselves at open war with Salah ad-Din rather sooner than later. But until then, for what it’s worth, your brother is as safe with the Hospitallers as he can be in this god-forsaken city. A friend of mine has an eye on him. Two eyes, whenever he can spare them.” 

It is not much of a reassurance, let alone a comfort, but the girl takes it wordlessly, schooling her features into an unflinching sculpture of stone. 

She has always been good at hiding things, the little witch – something that comes with her profession, he supposes, if it’s not a relic she’s brought with her from her old life all the way across the waters – but the thought pains him that there is still so much that she will not let him see. And why should she? She is young and without much help in the world; if she is wise, she will avoid making herself openly vulnerable as much as she can. Especially to someone like him, grizzled and influential, whom she has not much reason to suspect of harbouring particularly kind intentions towards her. Frankish lords, as a rule, seldom do. They’ll find a girl like her to warm their bed for a few nights because she is in no position to refuse and easily discarded afterwards, and because they enjoy having something to break in the same way that the world has broken them. 

Tiberias winces at the notion. _God help me if she thinks like that of me._ But then again, he has spent his life begging and praying and crouching on his knees to please a God who never listened and never answered, and instead only threw the fruits of his labours back at his feet like they were wilted and rotten at the core, worth nothing at all. 

(Baldwin at Kerak, on weak, tired legs, brandishing his riding crop at Reynald de Châtillon.)  
( _I am Jerusalem._ )  
(Sibylla in her apartments, wild as a fury from Erebus, khol smudged around her eyes.)  
( _Jerusalem is dead, Tiberias._ )

And now he sees it in the girl, again, that which he thought they’d left behind for good. It is there, clear as day; in her closed-off expression, in the angle of her chin, along with the dreaded _my lord_ and the curtseys and trembling silences: the distance between them, the trust that flickers and fades like the flame of a candle in a breeze continually growing colder. 

They’re both rattled and tired to the bone; he cannot tell how the world turns anymore, where it will shove them next. Overnight, the chessboard of Jerusalem has acquired new squares and strangely-carved figures, and in the midst of the game, half his pieces lost to a mythical Avalon already, a battered old knight must learn how to play it all anew. He doesn’t know if there’s still reason enough to fight. 

Clinging to the doorframe for support, Tiberias breathes harshly, deeply through his nose to stop the room from turning around him, to stop a gasp from rising in his throat. _Just let me close my eyes for a moment_ , he thinks, worn-out nerves jangling confusedly within him. _I can’t – I can’t –_

“You’re tired, my lord,” Isolt’s voice says from somewhere beside him. “You should go home and get some sleep.”

(Home. _Home_. Hah.)

Somehow, he manages to pull himself together and straightens up a little, and there it hits him again. _God’s bones_ , he thinks, glancing at Isolt’s brother, who, fast asleep in the dying candlelight, looks very much like a boy still. _God’s bones, you could be his father. Her father, too – you’re old enough even for that._ And then shame creeps up on him like the snake in the Garden, and he turns his eyes away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more information on the historical stuff mentioned in this chapter:  
> \- Isabella, Humphrey, the factions of the nobles, and the rivalry for the crown: After Baldwin V died, the Kingdom of Jerusalem only narrowly avoided civil war about the question of succession. One side of the nobles at court supported the claim of Sibylla and her husband Guy, while the other side - led by Raymond III of Tripoli - supported the claim of Sibylla's younger half-sister Isabella, who was married to Humphrey IV of Toron, the stepson of Reynald de Châtillon. (Yes, relations were apparently kind of complicated back then.) When Tiberias calls Humphrey a wretched cringeling in this chapter, he's referring to Humphrey and Isabella bending the knee to Guy instead of pressing their claim further, as they allegedly wanted to avoid uprisings or civil war.  
> \- The dispute with Gerard of Ridefort over the merchant's daughter: Happened - although I twisted it a tiny bit. But R. of Tripoli was apparently indeed paid the bride's weight in gold so he would not give her to Gerard as he had originally promised to do, which is one of the reasons why he and the Templars didn't get along, and why the Battle of Hattin turned out to be the disaster that it was for the crusaders, in the end.  
> \- The ten years in a Saracen prison aren't my invention either, although historical record disagrees on the actual number (some sources say eight, or twelve, so I went with the middle).


	3. Ophidia In Herba - A Snake in the Grass

He dreams of labyrinthine buildings, that night; of marble floors veined with thin streams of human blood; of pale trees growing in through stained-glass windows, their roots buried in the soil of an inner garden that he cannot see. Within the span of a single breath, days and days go by. Footsteps follow him through endless hallways; the colours skitter across the walls with the changing of the light. 

Tiberias has never been a vivid dreamer. He has learnt early on that it is hard to prevail when one takes the day’s sorrows straight into the night – you need to distance yourself from those things, gather some strength, or they will consume you. So he has taught himself to shut the thoughts out, the nagging disquiet, no matter how urgent his worries, or how stony the ground beneath him, and just sleep: From early childhood on, he remembers most of his nights as nothing but blackness. 

This one, however, leaves him disoriented and apprehensive in a sea of tangled bedclothes, shivering from an influx of imagined cold. The curtains flutter in the breeze: veiled ghosts ambling about the edge of his perception, with holes in their faces and mangled, flailing limbs. _We are Jerusalem. What have you done to us?_

He has read accounts of what they did when they took the city during the First Crusade, his great-great-grandfather Raymond of Toulouse, Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert of Flanders and all the other hopefuls – young and old – that they brought with them, barely a hundred years ago. To maim, to kill, to conquer. Sometimes Tiberias sees it right before his eyes, a dark echo of the heroics the chroniclers rejoiced in: swords and siege ladders and wild men wading ankle-deep through the blood in the streets, thousands of lives and pages of wisdom going up in fire and smoke. _Deus vult._ Sometimes he thinks he deserved what the Muslims did to him in captivity – not on account of himself, but for the sins of his forefathers. 

_A kingdom built on a graveyard._ How could they ever have expected this business to go anything but ill?

He laughs hoarsely at his own reflection in the washbasin: an ancestor’s face, refusing to learn. He doesn’t go back to sleep.

When an over-bright, blindingly white sun finally rises over the palace, Tiberias has already written two dispatches destined for Europe and put his seal on the death warrant of a Knight Templar – the third one this week. He feels a vague sense of guilt about it; they are men in holy orders, after all, and one should not have to execute them by the dozen. But since they have allied with Reynald and the king, they wreak havoc wherever they go, and he tries to do away with the most dangerous ones among them as quietly as he can while Guy is still busy bathing in the light of his triumph.

Politics in the Holy Land: a field of Greek fire. Breathe the flames or be burned alive.

(It’s not like he hasn’t killed enough people already.)

At the stroke of seven, one of the younger squires shuffles in with a tray of breakfast. Without looking up from his writing, Tiberias can guess which one it is: the mousy lad, who claims he is fourteen but looks like a child of ten, and who is so afraid of disturbing the reputedly ill-tempered Lord Marshal that he never speaks until he is right in front of his desk. “Good m-morning, my lord, I bring you your –” 

“Yes, yes, I know.” Tiberias absently waves him off. “Put it on the balcony, boy, I don’t have time for it now.”

The squire, however, in his haste to comply, turns on his heel with a bow – and promptly upsets the carefully constructed pile of letters and official documents at the edge of Tiberias’ desk, sending them tumbling to the floor in a landslide of parchment. 

Setting down his quill with a stifled groan, Tiberias levels a glare at the child. “Can’t you watch where you’re going?” 

“My – my lord, I –” Mortified, the boy sets aside the tray and drops to his knees to rifle through the now hopelessly disordered heap of rolls and papers, but Tiberias shoos him away. 

“For God’s sake, you little fool, shove off! Don’t make it worse than it already is.” 

Half a morning’s work – gone with the swish of a careless elbow. Christ Jesu, he has a mind to whack the boy over the head for his clumsiness. 

But because he’s aware that violence is not going to change anything, Tiberias instead crouches down on the cold flagstones himself, picking up his documents and whatever else the cub has managed to knock over, all the while trying to ignore the twinge of pain in his leg. Thus, when he gets to his feet again, he is quite irked to find the squire still standing there, hands clasped sheepishly behind his back, round face pale and frightened, as though puzzling over how best to address an issue that he knows isn’t going to please him. 

Tiberias feels his patience wearing thin. “What is it?” he snaps. “Out with it, boy. I don’t have all day.”

“His Grace the king, my lord, he – he bids you come before him, this afternoon. To take an oath, I think. In the Temple of Solomon.”

“Only me? To take an oath at the Templar headquarters?” He raises his eyebrows; this does not bode well. “Does my lord Guy suppose me a dimwit to agree to such a proposition?” 

The unfortunate squire shrinks in his blue livery, looking very much like he would rather be somewhere else. “I – I wouldn’t presume to know, my lord … But the other noblemen at court are invited as well, I believe. A-and pardon my insolence, but I should think His Grace the king meant it not as a proposition but as an order.” 

_Of course._ Guy doesn’t know how to ask amiably; he knows neither subtlety nor diplomacy. All he knows, Tiberias thinks morosely, is to lift the whip in plain view and threaten, and if that proves inefficient, he will beat you till your back is streaked with red gashes and your teeth rattle around in your skull. It is a sad day indeed when you have to watch the king roar ‘I am the king!’ at the top of his lungs in order for his subjects to believe it. 

Nonetheless: whatever it is Guy wants this time, Tiberias knows that it would be suicide to refuse him. _And with Godfrey and Baldwin gone_ , a voice whispers within him, _and Balian disappeared to cloud-cuckoo-land, who will protect the people if not you?_ Jerusalem isn’t dead yet. It will be soon enough, but perhaps it is not too late to try and limit the damage.

He gives a brief nod to the squire and sighs. “Come on, boy, off you go. Tell my lord the king I will obey.”

***

Almost overnight, the palace has shed its mourning attire for little King Baldwin like a lizard his old skin. The colourful tapestries have been brought out again, the rooms thoroughly swept and aired, and Guy has set painters to work in two of the hallways to change the saints’ faces in the murals to his own likeness: egg-shaped head, ridiculously long, girlish tresses in the Norman fashion, and an arrogant half-smile to match. The very image of humility and restraint.

In passing, Tiberias offers the unfinished picture a mock shudder. _Long live the king._

But despite the general zealousness that seems to have overcome servant and nobleman alike, he cannot quite shake the impression that something about the place has changed forever. The stillness is gone; the watery sheen of blue on the ornamented tiles in the dusk, when the sun creeps lower and lower and Jerusalem’s ghosts dare to show their faces. Now even quiet voices carry far, calling _betrayal, betrayal_ to the ears of the king, and the smell of frankincense set to burn in the perfume pans is suffocating, oppressive. Like Guy means to drive out the lingering stench of death, to stifle the rot that has taken root in the flesh and bones of the kingdom long before the lepers ever drew their first breath. This is what remains: a dream half-dreamt, dwindling into obscurity.

As he goes about his day, Tiberias becomes yet again painfully aware of how few friends at court he has left. For each of the dignified Muslim merchants and ambassadors that used to sit at high table in Baldwin’s day, always prepared for business negotiations as well as amiable conversation in Arabic, there are at least two Templars now, prowling the courtyards and eavesdropping from the galleries and swarming either Guy or the lord Patriarch at dinner like a flock of white carrion crows, eager for a crumb of their glory. Even Gerard joins them from time to time to spew his poison; he can barely hide his smile whenever his gaze happens to alight on Tiberias, since he knows just as well as anybody that he will fall out of favour rather sooner than later. Bohemund of Antioch, an ally of old, will scarcely look at him these days; and when Tiberias enquires after Sibylla, one of her maids – a flimsy, snub-nosed thing – whispers to him that the queen has locked herself away in her rooms and admits no visitors. 

_Oh, Sibylla._ He stands there for a moment, regarding the latticed doors with a measure of sorrow, but without surprise. The late king’s sister has weathered much in her short life: a childhood spent in a convent, a small, sickly son and a dead husband at fifteen. They had always suspected that the boy wouldn’t live long – alas. Sibylla, ever the lioness, wouldn’t hear of it, and now they’ve all seen what they did not care to see. Tiberias hopes against hope that she will recover from the loss, but when he tries to picture her as queen, next to Guy in his magnificent ermine cloak, the only thing he’s able to conjure is the ink-coloured creature from the day she poisoned her son: feral and brittle and swarthened by sin; just short of breaking point. 

He gives the doors a last look before he leaves. _I shall remember her as she was, then. Like I remember her brother._

***

There is no friend left to accompany him to the Templar headquarters, so Tiberias goes alone, trotting through the cobbled streets on one of his palfreys as though he merely means to go for a light ride. He almost fools himself for a second: The day is hot and dry, but not uncomfortably so, and the fading September sun pleasantly warms his shoulders while he makes his way through the city – crossing the Armenian quarter with its ever-expanding monasteries and hidden alleyways to gain the bustling markets in the shadow of St Mary Latin: ramshackle stalls and tents of patterned cloth neighbouring each other, a heavy amalgam of dust and spices thickening the air. If you manage to emerge still breathing, it is straight on from there – towards the bulwark of the Western Wall and the gilded dome of the Temple, glinting like a lodestar above a desert of sand and stone. 

Tiberias’ mount parts the crowds not quite like Moses the Red Sea. Progress is slow; he can feel the horse tense underneath him at every sound and smell, its ears flicking back and forth to the hollering of the traders and the clinking chainmail of the knights, an old woman’s toothless cackle and a surge of boisterous laughter from a group of half-grown boys. Not knowing where to turn to, the horse – in its own fashion – is just as nervous as its rider: overwhelmed, afraid of losing control.

As he tightens his grip on the reins and mutters a bunch of nonsense to calm the beast, Tiberias wonders not for the first time that day what on earth Guy means to gain by it. It is not unheard of for a newly crowned king to assure himself of the loyalty of his courtiers, but even Guy must know that there is a difference between genuine loyalty and fear. _Swear an oath in the Templar headquarters – does he mean to frighten us into submission?_

Tiberias squeezes his eyes shut at the thought. _Easy, yet effective. No honesty required._

He has sworn his fair share of oaths in his life, many of them out of desperation rather than true allegiance. He is not a man of principle, not to the extent Godfrey was. He tends to prefer staying alive to dying a martyr’s death, because it grants him a second chance to try and mend what he managed to botch the first time around. Not that that always accounts for much, mind. Godfrey was the incurable idealist between the two of them; he himself is of a more practical disposition. 

_Ay_ , he thinks with a heavy heart, reining in his horse long before he needs to. _Perhaps I should have had the good sense to leave while I still could. Retreat to my estates in the north. Spend whatever years I have left in Tripoli, and throw Jerusalem to the dogs._

The others have done it – the ones who supported Isabella’s claim along with him; a veritable lifetime ago now, it seems. Young Humphrey has fled to God knows where with his tail between his legs, fearing the wrath of stepfather Reynald and his cronies. The Count of Sidon, another old friend and distant relative, has reportedly returned to his homestead at Beaufort, and Bohemund of Antioch – if Tiberias is any judge – will be the next one to make himself scarce. This is it: he knows this is it. Without a heavenly miracle, it is all downhill from here. And yet, and yet … he has chosen to stay. 

For years people have called him traitor, called him heathen, called him a shame to Christianity. He would have survived it to be called a coward, he thinks, if only to save his life and the futures of those who depend upon him: Eschiva and her sons, the knights and peasants in his county. 

And yet: Baldwin’s last wishes. Godfrey’s dream of a better world. The little witch and her freckled smile. 

(Perhaps Guy still has reason enough to be afraid of him.)

Tiberias shakes his grizzled head to ward off the memories. No time to dwell on the past now, or on what could have been. The Temple Mount rises before him, a great open plaza with the Temple of Solomon and its gilded dome in the centre, baking like a cracked egg in the afternoon heat. The place is awash with men in the order’s white habits adorned with red Latin crosses; young squires, scrubbed clean for the occasion, take care of the arrival’s horses.

Briskly patting the horse’s neck, Tiberias hands his palfrey over to one of the boys and limps towards the entrance of the building with no small amount of stiffness in his leg. He feels weary already. _Let us hope that this will not end in a catastrophe._

Two Knights Templar stand guard at the door – and with them Gerard of Ridefort, whose pinched features instantly crumple into a sulky frown at the sight of Tiberias. In his best ceremonial cloak – white, with golden embroidery at the hems – the man nevertheless manages to leave a decidedly ferrety impression, having weaselled his way into a position where he clearly doesn’t belong. Philosophical nuances usually pass clean over Gerard’s head. 

Tiberias flashes him a grin: a glimpse of fang. “Grand Master.”

“My lord Tiberias.” Gerard’s white-gloved fists curl in on themselves as he reluctantly bows his head, his spluttery Norman-French already bubbling with ill-suppressed ire. “What an _honour_. I am glad you could make it.”

“So am I, my friend, so am I. I trust you will take part in the ceremony? Help my lord king ensure his subjects’ ardent devotion?”

The ferret swells a little, despite himself – whether with pride or with anger, it is hard to say. Probably a mixture of both. “Yes, indeed I will. It is only fitting. His Grace, after all, has been favourably disposed towards my order from the very beginning – because we, unlike some other … _parties_ who would call themselves good Christians, have always stood firmly with the rightful ruler of the kingdom against the threat of the infidels.”

Tiberias takes the jab at his dignity with a tired nod. He is used to it; it is a pity, really, that Gerard seems unable to come up with something new, every once in a while. Considering that he always goes for the Lord Marshal’s most obvious offence, his repertory is rather limited. 

As he makes to enter the Temple, though, Ridefort holds him back by the shoulder. 

“Your blades, my lord,” he spits. “You have to go before the king unarmed.”

“Ah,” Tiberias says, cursing inwardly. “Forgive me. I forgot.”

Grudgingly, he unbuckles his sword-belt and hands over his daggers to one of the squires standing attendance. The knife in his boot he keeps where it is; it’s not going to save him when push comes to shove, but he feels naked without it. 

The Grand Master grants him a sour smile in return. “You may go in now, my lord. I shall pray to every saint who will listen that you won’t forget your oath when you are called forth to take it.”

“Let that be my concern, Gerard, eh?” Tiberias smiles back rather ferally. “Don’t rack your brain. It might overexert itself.”

Striding off into the cool of the Temple, he feels Ridefort’s hateful glances burning into his back until the twilight beneath the high stone arches swallows him whole. White-and-blue ornamented tiles, an intricate play of light and shadow. The ghosts of Jerusalem are yapping at his heels again – he can only hope that they won’t fault him for whatever is going to pass today. 

***

Unsurprisingly, he, the traitor, has been placed among the lesser nobles near the back of the Temple, far away from the radiant glory of the king and his flock of fanatics and murderers. Still, being taller than most, Tiberias sees more than he cares to see.

From the floor to the ceiling, the circular room is hung with Templar banners and tapestries depicting biblical scenes, almost completely obscuring the elaborate floral and geometric patterns left on the walls from a time before Christian knights ever set foot on Jerusalem’s soil. The Muslims would have thought it idolatry: Saint George slaying a dog-sized dragon, John the Baptist wading through the river Jordan, Jesus nailed to the cross. Ten years among the enemy have taught Tiberias much; and so he, too, in lieu of all those slaughtered in the name of Christ, looks at the gilded saints’ images and wooden figurines a bit askance. As his Hospitaller friend is so fond of saying: _If you can understand it, it is not God._

He does not think many of the men present have ever made an attempt at understanding.

When the last guests have trickled in, the doors are shut and bolted from within and without. Tiberias tenses, the knife in his boot searing-cold against his ankle. He doesn’t believe that Guy means to kill him – not yet, at any rate; not here, in the most obvious of places. Nonetheless, though, his gaze sweeps the crowd: enemies to all sides. 

And then: “My dearest friends.”

His head snaps around. Guy. 

Strutting in – fur mantle draped about his broad shoulders and a two-handed sword in a bejewelled scabbard hanging by his side – the king undoubtedly cuts an imposing figure. He seems calm, almost resigned, but appearances deceive; after six years of having to tolerate the man at court, Tiberias recognises all too well the dangerous twitch of his lips and the incline of his head, like a lion about to shake his mane. _I am the king._ The lion looks regal enough, ay – but only until he opens his mouth and the roar disappoints, betraying neither wisdom nor moderation.

“I am pleased to see you have followed my invitation in such great numbers.” The king’s speech is clear and cold, his words no doubt rehearsed countless times ever since he married Sibylla. “Your support means much to me, especially in a time like this. Two kings dead within the span of one year … obviously, we all are still in shock. The demise of little Baldwin was a particularly tragic one – an innocent life, extinguished like a candle barely set to burn …” He sniffles dramatically, casts a measured glance heavenward. “Forgive me. He was a son to me in all but blood.” 

Tiberias can scarcely keep himself from laughing. _A son in all but blood._ Throughout the boy’s miserable life, Guy has liked nothing better than to frighten him, to present him with veiled threats that frequently sent his mother over the edge. Christ’s wounds, he himself has probably spent more time with the child than the king ever did. To construct this charade that wouldn’t fool the daftest of the Templars, to take even the last morsel of truth from a life already buried neck-deep in the sands of history – 

A harsh shake of the head. _Ah, but why bother. The dead are dead, and the fearful like to stomp on the helpless. It’s the tale of the world, over and over again._

“It was a tragedy, yes,” Guy drawls. “But we must accept the trials God has placed upon our shoulders for what they are: opportunities to prove ourselves worthy of the burden of our sacred task. We have seen the sun rise again – to a new dawn, to a kingdom unblemished by sores and blindness, to a king and queen who are healthy and strong and don’t have to hide their faces behind the silver of a mask. If the past few years have taught us anything, it is that the old saying is true: A king’s body _is_ the land he rules. There is no difference between the two. If the king is ill, so is his realm. If the king is weak, so are his people. And out of weakness, we have made liege with heathens and infidels – we have kept Jerusalem’s gates open for those who don’t deserve to look upon the heart of Christendom. What say you to that?”

“No longer!” It is Gerard’s voice that rises high and piercing over the agitated mumbling of the men: ever eager to stir up a fight. 

Tiberias shuts his eyes. _Baldwin, forgive me._

“No longer,” Guy says, sounding very satisfied with himself. “Exactly. So let me be honest with you. I asked you here because we live in hard times – hard times that might get harder still. We are threatened by the enemies of God, and after years of lax policies, we are weakened from within. But no longer! I am crowned and no leprous invalid; I will suffer neither cravens nor turncoats among my court. Loyalty, however – and I give you my word on that – shall be richly rewarded.” 

The king pauses to glance around, making sure they have understood the message. Tiberias is just astonished at the fact that the man can spout such nonsense and still appear to believe every word of it. _“We are threatened” – ha! We are the ones threatening: wanting to take and take – land, riches, resources – until nothing is left._ Come what may, though, he knows Guy will have his war. If Salah ad-Din doesn’t start it, he will take care to make one. Because that’s what _real_ kings do: They wage war. A king without a sword in his hand is a king no one will remember.

“It will be hard,” Guy says. “But I promise you: If we stand together, we can prevail against our enemies. So – for the sake of Christianity, for the love of this kingdom: Who will stand with me?”

The Temple erupts in hoarse cries and shouts, in raised arms and the occasional stomping of booted feet that echoes from the walls. It’s a ruckus well worthy of their wretched council meetings at the Tower of David; Tiberias is half-surprised that none of them bellows “God wills it!” by accident. And although there are a handful of men who, like him, choose to keep quiet, the Templars and Templar confrères between themselves make enough noise for twice that number: blundering oafs in a foreign land. 

When the uproar has died down, at last, Guy starts calling them forth one by one to take their oath of fealty. Heraclius – as official witness to the act – peers over the king's shoulder like a particularly unpleasant angel. 

Some of the men shuffle, slowed down by a conscience that, at this point, has become nothing but dead weight in their struggle for survival. Others stalk and puff out their chests, too dim or self-possessed to be aware of the noose that’s being tied around their necks. They swear fealty, ay – Guy obviously hopes that fear will keep them in check and his kingdom from falling apart. But at any sign of disloyalty, disobedience, he is now within all rights to call them traitor, oath-breaker, enemy to the crown, because they’ve sworn a holy oath and acted against it. He’ll kick the stool out from under them and pronounce himself a just ruler, silencing the opposition and lending his ear to those whose thoughts and opinions are mere reflections of his own. The broken necks come free. 

True: it is what most kings do. But Baldwin knew how to rule a country. He was wise – and _brave_ – enough to put his people first; he knew who to ask for honest advice. All Guy wants is for you to feel the shackles on your feet, the iron collar at your throat and who holds the key to them; how the chains choke and chafe you whenever you try to stray from your path. The man is a newcomer to the Holy Land. He has never been a soldier, he has never been to war. He has never had his comrades carry him from the battlefield, bleeding and broken – out of harm’s way. He thinks he can do it all alone. And worse: He thinks it is all about him. Which is probably why he surrounds himself with buffoons and lickspittles who have never had so much as an original idea in their entire lives.

Tiberias watches with disgust as Gerard throws himself like a dog at the king’s feet. There is no riding crop, no slobbery kiss on a crippled hand – but for a moment he sees himself back there, at Kerak: exhausted and dust-covered, unable to hold the veiled, wasted figure of the king upright. No strength left; the illusion failing in plain sight. 

But Guy stands firm, and Gerard gets up again: Grand Master of the Templars, friend to the king. A promising future ahead.

The oath-taking passes Tiberias by in a haze. No man refuses – they’re not as hare-brained as that. He spots the balding pate of Joscelin of Courtenay, uncle to the queen on her mother’s side, and the garish vestments of the Lord of Saône; and then, of course, there is Reynald, freshly out of the gaols and none the wiser – or leaner – for it. Tiberias is not surprised. The hounds long for their master: for the second he unleashes them, for the thrill of the hunt. He is too tired to feel much anger about it at all. 

He stares at the floor, little flecks of light dappling the old stone beneath. 

_You’re not going to stay, are you?_

The coal-dark night, her shoulder against his. He didn’t even give her an answer. _Did she expect me to run away?_

He wonders, briefly, if she’d be happier with him gone. They have their moments, yes, but he isn’t fool enough to think that she needs him. While it might be harder, perhaps, to keep up the poison business without the Lord Marshal’s protection, he knows that she would find a way. She’s a crafty girl; she can take care of herself. 

And yet, and yet … every now and then, he allows himself to dream. 

When his own name is called, eventually, the light is beginning to fade, and the Lord Patriarch up front looks like he has bitten into a lemon from last year’s harvest. A few heads turn, mildly astonished that he is not already rotting in the deepest dungeon; and although everything in him baulks at the thought of bending the knee to _this_ , Tiberias slowly makes his way through the ranks of the nobles, overly aware of his uneven steps and dishonest face, of the clink of his spurs on the stone flags, glancing neither left nor right. 

There are no ghosts to guide him – only the blood that sticks to his hands, and the skeletons buried under his feet. _Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong._

(It is Godfrey’s voice that keeps him on his feet until the end.) 

The king looks upon him with a false smile and eyes almost devoid of colour. “I always knew you to be a man of sense, Lord Marshal,” he purrs. “Know when you have lost. No one shall say that I am above granting second chances … to those who _earn_ them.” 

Lowering his gaze to the floor, Tiberias gives a nod so curt and harsh that it might well have broken his neck; he would hardly have cared. He swallows the tattered remains of his pride and goes to his knees somewhat stiffly, folds his hands as he hasn’t done it for months now. 

He has to drag the words out one by one. 

“I promise,” he says, his voice so rough and strange that he can scarcely understand himself, “I promise, on my faith, that I will in the future be faithful to my lord king, never cause him harm, and will observe my – my homage to him completely, against all persons, in good faith … and without deceit.”

He speaks the oath: grimly, but he speaks it. He crosses his toes in his boots and thinks, _What a good thing I have lost all faith in the benevolence of this god._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more history notes: 
> 
> \- The events in this chapter are entirely fictional. The historical Tiberias left Jerusalem for his estates at Tripoli right after the death of Baldwin V, because he refused to bend the knee to Guy de Lusignan. But because the plot requires him to stay at court a little longer (and also because nothing much happened historically - at least that we know of - between the death of Baldwin and the Battle of Cresson the following year), I changed things a bit and forced him to swear fealty to Guy instead. Evil, I know.  
> \- The oath he swears at the end is sort of historically accurate - it was something that was used around the time, but we have no way of knowing if Guy de Lusignan made them swear allegiance to him in this way. But I think it would be fitting for his character as he's portrayed in KoH, so I figured, why not.  
> \- The Temple of Solomon, as it was called by the crusaders, is what we know nowadays as the Dome of the Rock, one of the holiest sites in Islamic culture. In the 12th century, the Knights Templar actually used it as their headquarters - it was given to them by King Baldwin IV. Well, who would've thought?  
> \- Please take the religious stuff with a grain of salt. I’m not a religious person myself and not very familiar with either Roman-Catholicism or Islam, so the elements mixed in here for the sake of authenticity are research- rather than experience-based. If I bungle it terribly, do tell me about it. I do not mean to be offensive or insensitive in regard to anyone’s religious beliefs.  
> 


	4. Desiderantes Meliorem Patriam - They Desired a Better Land

People talk of paradise as though it is a place they can reach. That it is waiting for them, just around the bend: sun-speckled orchards stretching towards the horizon with fruit hanging low on the trees, ripe for picking. Men and women in white gowns wander the land in idle dreaminess, the sky above them frozen in eternal half-light, the dew in the grass cooling their feet. There is no suffering, no discontent; they have no need for many-eyed angels with blazing swords. 

It is this image, more than anything, that Isolt sees crumbling in the gaze of the old woman when she asks her to describe the snake that has bitten her granddaughter. 

“Well, it was black, I should think – sleek and black – it came out of the undergrowth so quickly …” The old woman bites back a sob. She speaks haltingly, absently, obviously under the impression that none of her words are going to matter anyway; that Isolt is merely asking to distract her, to take her mind off the grey-faced wight in the bed that already resembles a ghost more than a human being. The monks at the Hospital are proud of their craft – they only ever send for the Flemish herb-witch, as many of them call her, when things are threatening to get out of hand. 

Alas, ‘tis one of those days: a matter of life or death. The grim expression of the Knight Hospitaller who brought her tells Isolt that she had better not fail. 

“A black snake, then,” she says gently. “Is there anything else you remember? Markings that stood out to you, maybe a pattern, a peculiar shape of the nose?” 

But she can see that the question is futile even before the old woman shakes her head, strands of thin white hair escaping her linen coif like clouds blown off course by a storm. The wrinkled face looks drained and blotchy from shedding too many tears; her pilgrim’s badge – a red Latin cross stitched over her heart – must have been fading for a long time under the relentless glare of the Eastern sun. 

“Nay, I –” The woman swallows. “Why do you keep asking me these things? She’s in God’s hands now, is she not? What – what witchery are you going to attempt, little maid, that these holy men could not?” 

There it is again. _Witch_. Isolt feels herself stiffen involuntarily. 

“It would help if you remembered, that is all,” she says as calmly as she can. “You see, different kinds of snake have different venoms, which need to be treated with different methods. It matters whether the snake you saw was a black adder or a mole viper. If we were able to figure out which one it was, it would make it easier for me to find the right treatment for your granddaughter. Otherwise, I’ll have to … try a few things.”

The pilgrim woman looks horrified at the very suggestion, and Isolt wants to smack herself for her careless words in an instant. _God’s nails – ‘try a few things’! I sound like a common charlatan hailed from the streets._

(Witch.)  
(Witch.)  
(Witch.)

It is always the folk newly from Europe throwing about this ugly word: pilgrims and monks, tramps and traders, knights and crusty goodwives from the country. They smell the green, earthy scent of her clothes and hair, hear her talk about all the things that can cause a heart to still and a throat to swell – and immediately conclude that she must be a forest-dweller, a friend of cats; that she speaks to the birds in tongues, covers herself in toadstool salve to become invisible and can give you the palsy if you let her look at you for too long. 

She’s a woman who knows too much – so she _must_ be a witch. Had Heaven made her a man instead, Isolt reckons people would cheerfully greet her on the street and invite her to stay for supper. And if not that, then they would at least hold back those glances that are equal parts hateful and frightened, glances that make her want to curl in on herself like a hedgehog and wait for someone unbothered by the bristles to carry her away to safety. Except that she’d most likely be stepped on by a thousand feet before anybody would think to pluck her out of the dust: unrecognisably flattened, heat-struck, useless. She has to see to her own fortune – which means taking care not to upset the delicate balance between keeping her head above water and not calling excessive attention to herself. 

“ _Try a few things_?” The old woman is still gaping at her but has at least found a voice again: ragged and high-pitched like the shriek of an owl. “Is she a plaything to you? Just – just another trifling body to exercise your vile notions on? Doubtless that is what you conceived of, in your ungodly mind. D’you take me for a simpleton, girl, unaware of – ”

Isolt buries her fingers in the sheepskin cover on the bed, her knuckles turning white. “I didn’t mean to say –”

But the woman merely talks over her, having caught sight of a Hospitaller friar tending to a patient nearby, and out of habit, Isolt clamps her mouth shut, suddenly ashamed. 

_The poor old hag doesn’t know better_ , she tells herself. _She doesn’t know better, and she’s desperate – I have no right to be vexed with her._

Nevertheless, the mistrust stings. _My craft was good enough for the purposes of the royal palace, yet now I am deemed insufficient to treat a snake bite on a common pilgrim girl._

The face of the gnarly, grey Hospitaller padding towards them betrays the same exasperation she feels inside. 

“Is there a problem?” The friar squints at them through half-closed eyelids, a landscape of creases appearing between his tufted brows. Like many of the brothers serving at the Hospital of St John, he is an old knight no longer fit for wearing mail and wielding a sword; his calloused hands tell the tale of many a battle. He acknowledges Isolt with a cordial nod. “Lady witch.”

Relief washes over her. There are plenty of superstitious men among the Hospitallers, but this weathered countenance is one she knows to be kindly. “Brother Clemens.”

“Present, as you see.” The hint of a smile, hidden somewhere in the long, silvered beard – and soon followed by an inquisitive frown. “Well, how can I be of assistance? I daresay your patient isn’t helped by your endless bickering.”

 _No, indeed she’s not_ , Isolt thinks miserably, her gaze sliding over to the bed. 

Outside, it is a colourless day, cool and breezy for mid-September, and hinting at yet another rainy, unpleasant winter. A chill creeps in through the arched windows, making Isolt shiver in her light linen dress; the snake-bitten girl, however, still almost drowns under the quilts and sheepskins a well-meaning Hospitaller heaped on her to help her sweat out the fever. Only her left foot sticks out of the pile: swollen and discoloured up to the ankle. She has been unconscious all morning, long before the monks even thought to call on Isolt, and the venom has leeched all colour out of her, slowing down her breathing to shallow, laboured gasps. She doesn’t have time to waste. 

“We are idling away her life with this fruitless chatter,” Isolt says, tasting a not unfamiliar tinge of guilt on the tip of her tongue. “But I cannot begin to treat her unless I’m allowed to practise my methods. I – ”

But once again, she is unable to finish her sentence. 

“Brother,” the old woman interjects, pleading. “On my word – could you not find a proper doctor? Is it – is it wise to let this slip of a girl –” 

At that, Isolt wants to sigh in frustration. _I’m three-and-twenty, goodwife. I’m a woman grown. And your incessant howling hardly does anything for the poor wretch you brought with you._ She holds her tongue, though. As her long-dead mother never tired of saying: Humility goes a long way. 

Thankfully enough, Brother Clemens can take a hint and comes to her rescue. 

“Good woman,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “this girl, as you call her, has studied the medical scriptures of the Greek and Arabic scholars. I can therefore assure you, wherever poisons, venoms, and antidotes are concerned, she knows what she’s doing – better than any _proper_ doctors I would be able to fetch, at any rate. If she cannot help your grandchild, I fear no one can. Short of the royal physicians, perhaps.”

The commendation is kindly – quite possibly overly so – and Isolt lowers her head in gratitude. She is glad that the old friar is blissfully unaware of all the disgraceful things she’s done: the fact, for instance, that she supplied the poison to kill a boy-king of merely nine years, or that she helped divest half a dozen noble ladies of their not-so-noble husbands ever since she arrived in Jerusalem. It is the sort of burden you do not share with your confessor; the sort that no amount of _Aves_ and _Pater Nosters_ can put right again. Unforgivable: a stain that cannot be wiped from the soul. 

_Perhaps you were not the one who said, “Kill them”_ , it often occurs to her in her sleepless nights. _But you were the one who made the sword._

The bite mark shifts in front of her eyes. Two little holes, and so much damage. A smear of dried blood on skin the colour of a fresh bruise. 

_A stain on the soul._ The pilgrim woman looks as though she can see right through to it. 

When she attempts to protest, however, Brother Clemens puts his hand on the crone’s arm. “Isolt will try her best,” he says. “That much I can promise you. She won’t do any more harm to the girl-child than has already been done, and – God willing – she might even be able to save her.”

“You may watch if you want to,” Isolt adds softly. “It’s no witchery at all – I can explain it to you if you like.”

“Hm,” the old woman grunts, brushing tears of anger from her sunken cheeks. “Well. If you insist, little maid … by all means, go ahead.”

***

It takes her a long day and a long night.

Venom is a fickle thing – especially if it’s been in the body for hours and no one knows the kind of snake it has come from. There are only so many things you can try before you have to admit defeat and call for a sawbones to amputate the limb. And even this does in no way guarantee success, as it is often accompanied by fevers and gangrene and battalions of other horrid complications that, back in Flanders, Isolt would have shuddered to even imagine. 

A ghastly picture: the frail, unconscious wraith in the bed without her left foot. Crippled and ruined for life. 

Under the watchful eye of the old woman, Isolt tries every method she can think of. 

The monks’ usual practice of applying a ligature and a plaster of theriac to the bite has done frightfully little for the girl so far. She is still pale and feverish, still breathing heavily, and Isolt decides it’s no longer worth the wait. Time is the one thing they do not have. 

So she rushes to the Hospital’s kitchens to fetch hot vinegar and a sponge and applies them to the wound, heart hammering in her chest, fingers trembling despite herself. Then she waits. Half an hour, an hour. Nothing changes. She repeats the same procedure with water – first hot, then cold. Nothing. The light begins to fail, coating the dusty stone sill of the window in a faint red hue. She tries a poultice of figs and crushed pomegranate leaves, and a potion of turbith and coriander. Stars begin to prick the fabric of the sky; the old woman falls asleep in her chair. Isolt asks a yawning friar for candles and a warm quilt – and continues. 

Sometimes she wishes she did truly have the powers of a witch. To be able to speak one word and set everything right again. Recall King Baldwin from the realm of the dead. Put a measure of common sense into the heads of the Templars. Make the blind see again and the lame walk. Erase the bitterness from Tiberias’ eyes.

Wishes: a futile business. She has heard tales about it – chiefly from Daifa and Suna, the daughters of the Arabic horse-dealer who used to live down the street, in a time before their Christian neighbours decided to throw rotten fruit and bucketfuls of clotted animal blood at their door. The tales the sisters told were unlike anything Isolt had ever come across at home; reminiscent, in their dark, dream-like quality, of dry earth stretching endlessly under a wide-open sky, rather than the dense, damp woodlands of Europe. 

There are other things to be afraid of here, in Outremer – in this fabled _land beyond the sea_. If there is a wish you want fulfilled, or a desire so strong it threatens to consume you, you do not consult a witch or call upon a demon from the circles of Hell. Instead, you may wander out into the desert on a moonless night, having fasted for seven days, and encounter an ifrit with spotted skin and eyes of flame. You may lift a stone and be met with a djinni, who grants you three wishes but will only listen to your words, not your intentions. And once you fall asleep, drained, yet still – foolishly – longing for more, one of the shayatin may visit your dreams: an evil spirit whispering to the heart. 

Once they’ve started to yearn for something, the people in the stories never seem to be able to stop. Hope stacked upon hope stacked upon hope. In this parched, crumbling place, wishing is the most dangerous thing to do. 

Stifling a yawn, Isolt rubs her eyes and draws the quilt tighter around her shoulders. The night outside is still black as ink, the city as quiet as it ever gets. Even the pilgrim girl breathes more evenly now; placing a hand on her patient’s forehead, Isolt notices that the fever is finally going down. 

_A scrap of mercy, at last._ She slumps down in her chair with relief – when the girl, under her heap of furs and blankets, suddenly stirs. 

“Is there – is there anything to drink?”

***

Later: a cup of watered-down wine on the nightstand, half empty, and an additional pillow stuffed into the girl’s back to help her sit upright.

“I’m done sleeping,” she rasps, voice still raw with exhaustion. “As long as I stay awake, you can’t do anything to me that I don’t want.” A beat. Then, a little softer: “I’d die of shame if I were made a cripple.”

Isolt looks at her in the erratic light of the dying candles and feels nothing but sympathy. 

The girl must be around Percy’s age – sixteen or seventeen – and Isolt can only imagine the sheepish glances her brother would bestow on the poor maid, were he on duty tonight. She is pretty, without doubt; perhaps not enough to catch the eye of a nobleman, but with a certain fair, apple-cheeked comeliness that will not go unnoticed by a merchant or a lesser knight – pretty enough, certainly, to allow her to marry quite a ways above her own station. Surely she has prospects waiting for her at home. Provided she returns in one piece, that is: because who will spare a thought for yet another ruined peasant girl?

A friar shuffles past them, muttering under his breath, his face obscured by the shadows of his cowl. The girl stares at him as though he’s a ghost passing from this world on to another. 

“You will be alright,” Isolt says to her, in a vain attempt to sound comforting. She has always been a terrible liar: every word she can’t quite bring herself to believe yet falls from her lips with an invisible question mark. “And even if you’re not,” she adds hastily, “– alright, I mean – for whichever reason – just know that life sometimes … takes an unexpected turn. Some priests may tell you that it is punishment, that it is divine justice – and who are we to decide what it is or isn’t? But, in the end …” She fiddles with a thread on her sleeve before forcing herself to meet the girl’s fearful gaze again. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Whatever happens, it is beyond your control, and it is not your fault. Whatever happens – the world will find a way to go on.”

“How would you know?” the girl retorts – with a surprising amount of acid in her weakened state. “You’ve never died. You can’t know what lies beyond this … this pile of rocks and camels and dirt. The ‘centre of the world’ – Heaven help me! I wish we’d never, _never_ come here.”

She turns her head away: hiding her tears, Isolt assumes. She feels the girl’s helpless anger as though it is her own.

Perhaps it _is_ her own. 

_I pictured a different life for myself as well_ , she wants to say. _But the one I got instead has not been for the worse, and it would be presumptuous to ask for more._

She knows it isn’t true, though. If you expect paradise, you expect paradise; nothing else will do. You do not expect a Jerusalem on the brink of falling to pieces, you do not expect having to leave your drowned husband at the bottom of the Mediterranean sea. You do not expect to go ashore with only a handful of coins in your pocket and your brother clinging to your arm; your brother, who is still half a child and tends to pick a fight with every drunkard twice his size who dared to call lewd things after you. 

The Holy Land: she did not expect it to be this. Faceless names half-remembered from hopeful letters, changing into nameless faces dismissing Percival and her with an airy remark or two. _Where is Anselm, hm? Where is your husband? You two could be anyone. Beggars, for all I care. Think I am feeding stray dogs?_

But somehow, against the odds, they managed to carve out a little nook for themselves in this moth-eaten paradise, this place grappled over with tooth and claw until nothing much of it was left anymore. The paint has largely worn off now, the holiness, too, and Isolt can see the cracks in the city’s surface wherever she goes. Discontent growing on people’s faces like mould, rumours about ambushed caravans and pilgrims being mugged on the roads. All the soldiers, everywhere, trying to keep a peace that never quite kept itself.

It is still her city, though; her home. And like time has blurred her late husband’s features into near-anonymity – young, smooth, untroubled: a newly-made knight – it has also eroded the wishes she once had, dimmed her expectations. What she has is enough, these days, chipped corners and all. It _would_ be presumptuous to ask for more. 

Nevertheless: Sometimes she dreams of what could have been. 

The candles go out with a hiss. They sit in the dark now, Isolt and the pilgrim girl: two motionless figures amidst living, breathing shadows. Left and right, they hear the patients turning in their beds, some of them muttering in their sleep. The old woman snores peacefully in her chair; downstairs, the friars are preparing for their nocturnal prayers. 

For the first time that day, Isolt feels the uneasiness fall away from her. She checks the girl’s temperature again – lower, at least, than before – and then smiles at her, a little. “You get used to it, you know.”

The girl frowns. “Get used to what?”

“To the dirt and the camels and the rocks. Coming here might not have turned out to be the revelation you hoped for, but … Jerusalem grows on you, after a while. I promise. It was – it _is_ – not always as dreary a place as it seems to you at the moment.”

A sigh from amid the furs. “I just … I thought it would somehow be more. People call it the Promised Land for a reason, don’t they? Not the Land of Angry Saracens, Snakes, and Dying Kings.”

Isolt wants to laugh at that, but finds that she cannot. She glances down at her hands instead, a hollow dread that’s been there since the day of the coronation creeping up her spine again. Her skin looks grey in the gloom, like stone, the freckles rendered nearly invisible by the lack of light.

 _Perhaps Tiberias is right_ , she thinks reluctantly, _grouchy old naysayer that he is. Perhaps this kingdom is just short of drawing its dying breath. Perhaps there is nothing here that’s worth saving, in the end. Only a pile of rocks hallowed by all the blood that has been shed over who holds it._

She doesn’t want to believe that, however: she will not let herself, not yet. She is prone to worrying, overthinking anyway – scrutinising the place she calls home with bitter cynicism would be more than she could bear. The cracks in the system are visible enough already; they do not need anybody to pull them further apart. 

“You’re planning to go back home again, right?” she asks the girl quietly. “Once you’ve visited the holy sites and prayed for your loved ones. You and your grandmother – you’re not going to stay here for longer, are you?” 

The girl shakes her head. “If I … if I don’t – that is to say, if I’m _alright_ – we’ll go back to Burgundy within a fortnight, I suppose. Grandmother said she would find me a good husband once we returned.” She furrows her brow, confused. “Why d’you ask? Is it something to do with – with Salah ad-Din? But I thought there was a truce – that no party was allowed to attack the other for years and years! I … Do you think it would be dangerous for us to stay?”

“No, not as things stand – at least not overly so. But it might, eventually.” Seeing the apprehension in the girl’s face, Isolt tries to keep her voice light. “Don’t worry. For the time being, you’re as safe as can be. As you said – Jerusalem brokered a truce with the Saracens a few years ago. But we had a different king then, and the agreement he made with Salah ad-Din is going to expire in the spring.” She bites her lip. “If we are unable to rekindle it … I don’t know what will happen.”

They fall silent after that, and Isolt realises she can say no more. The words have dried up in her mouth. 

She suspects that this is what Tiberias is afraid of, secretly. That after so many Christians have carelessly breached the peace – Reynald of Châtillon, the Lord of Outrejordain, chief among them – Jerusalem will fail to reach terms with Salah ad-Din once more. That the sultan will laugh into their faces with a replenished army at his back, stronger than ever before, and declare that he has come to reclaim what was taken from his people almost a hundred years ago. With fire and blood: an eye for an eye. And that King Guy, in all his foolish glory, will rally his forces behind him and honestly think they are vigorous enough to win.

The mere thought turns her stomach. 

She’s not a mooncalf; she knows they must be prepared for war. The men scarcely talk about anything else nowadays, even if they refuse to discuss the details with her. They all know something is coming – _the reckoning_ , as Brother Johann always says. _The reckoning for what our forefathers did to theirs._

Isolt tries to imagine it, sometimes. The flames, the screams, the thousandfold clang of metal on metal. Riderless horses thundering through the streets. Percival, Tiberias, her friends among the brethren of St John lying face-down in the dust, killed in the onslaught. 

The notion is meant to desensitise her for the day it might become grim reality, but in truth, it only frightens her more. The loss awaiting. If there is war, she knows not all the people she cares about will make it out alive. Perhaps not even one. Perhaps she will die herself. 

Over the two, three years they have known each other, Tiberias has told her bits and pieces about how the Latin kingdoms have come to be what they are today. Having grown up in the Levant, he is well-versed in its history and politics, and listening to him has frequently helped her put into perspective what she hears among the common folk and reports to either him or one of his trusted clerks at the Marshal’s office: the military campaigns and unsanctioned raids that leave disgraced noblemen and landless knights in the care of the Hospital, unrest breaking out among certain groups in the patchwork of Jerusalem’s population, rumours the European merchants and pilgrims carry with themselves across the waves. 

They rarely stray from state matters in their conversations. Nothing too personal, nothing too close to home, even when the candles burn low and strange thoughts begin to lurk in dark corners; when she drops her _my lord_ and moves a little closer and his eyes soften towards her, betraying an oddly hesitant familiarity imperceptible in broad daylight. Even then, he doesn’t ask about her dead husband or the family relations she still has back in Flanders, and she knows better than to broach both the topic of his wife or the long years he spent in captivity under Nur ad-Din. 

She shudders. _Some things are better left unsaid._

They know too much of each other already: not the complete picture, no, but too many of the little smudges found where life has worn away the paint. How long it takes her to form a sentence in Arabic, and how the slight drag in his gait becomes more pronounced when the weather changes. The number of freckles on her forehead. How steady his shoulder feels underneath her cheek – in the rare instances that all reason leaves her. 

She has to be careful, she knows it; because as good as he’s always been to her and her brother, the Count of Tripoli is not a man to cross. Just like about every other noble at court, he has bribed and deceived and killed, and she does not like the idea of being in his debt. People don’t say for nothing that the Lord Marshal speaks with a forked tongue, after all; that he is a traitor who will turn his back on you once you have ceased to serve his interests. 

_Old wives’ tales_ , one might argue – and perhaps they are. But she knows from experience that such stories tend to contain at least a morsel of truth, and when all is said and done, even a kind man may turn out to be just a patient wolf.

There are things she doesn’t want to know.

Nonetheless, Tiberias talks of the past, often. Which is probably inevitable, Isolt supposes, since so much of what he’s lived through has already faded into history. The battles he fought and the alliances he brokered, however feeble and insignificant they proved to be, in the end; King Amalric’s Egyptian wars, the hassle surrounding Princess Sibylla’s second marriage – and always, always the question of succession to the throne, splitting the kingdom time and time again. 

He talks of the past, but seldom of the future, and perhaps that is what worries her most of all. She is used to the gruffness, the fits of biting sarcasm, the way he calls her _little witch_ in his gently mocking growl. But what she saw that ill-fated evening he last knocked on her door was different. More than ever, Tiberias suddenly seemed old to her; old beyond the dark hair and beard flecked with silver and the tired lines etched into his face. Weary to the bone; a layer of resignation clouding his gaze that she had never seen there before. As though a rat had been gnawing at his insides – like he wasn’t quite _there_ anymore. Fading. Ready to give up.

(All those years in the dark.)  
(All the hopes that must have slipped through his fingers with every turn of the hourglass.)  
(All for naught.)

 _And now … oh, well._

Isolt chases the thought away. _It’s not my place to judge the regrets of someone else’s life. That is what confession is for – or the Last Judgement. It’s none of my concern._

She worries too much, at any rate. It’s sickening, it’s useless, but at times she can’t help it: seeing the ruins everywhere. The calm before the storm.

“How do you live with it?” the girl asks eventually, curled up on her side, her words heavy with sleep. “The uncertainty, I mean. Knowing that all this –” her hand draws a sloppy circle in the air, “– that all this might come tumbling down next spring?” 

“I try not to think about it,” Isolt says gently, with all the honesty she can muster. “And look around you – people can live with all sorts of things.” 

(It is a different question if they want to.)

***

Curled up uncomfortably in the wooden embrace of the chair, she is roused from her sleep only once. Quiet mumbling in the Hospital’s walled garden outside the window: the monks returning from Lauds, their daily prayer at dawn. Cramped and bleary, Isolt lifts her head at the noise, blinking into the soft, edgeless world the small hours bring – and beholds a curious sight.

A Knight Hospitaller stands beside the bed, fully clad in mail and black surcoat despite the earliness of the morning, a shining helmet with a nosepiece tucked under his arm. It takes Isolt a moment to recognise him: He’s one of the knights Percival seems to spend most of his time squiring for. Brother Johann – the one whose skin is always reddened from sunburn; who has hair as pale as the flesh of a lemon and eyes as blue as the base of a flame. A familiar face … and yet strange somehow, otherworldly, in the diffuse orange glow of beginning sunrise. 

_I should speak to him_ , she thinks confusedly. _Ask him what he’s doing to her – what he’s doing here, at the break of day._

But she is frozen in place, consumed by the irrational fear that he might turn around and notice her, and what might happen if he did. Would the sword by his side catch on fire if he drew it? 

_Nonsense. I’ve heard too many tall tales._

Still, Isolt sinks deeper into the chair, pretending to be asleep. 

(Perhaps she is dreaming still, a dream within a dream.)

Then, in one swift motion, Brother Johann pulls off one glove and touches his fingertips to the pilgrim girl’s forehead. Isolt stares at him, expecting light, blaze and brimstone – 

But nothing happens. The girl sleeps on, peaceful as ever. Only the knight inclines his head and smiles to himself, almost slyly, before vanishing into the gloaming. 

And whether it is divine intervention or plain luck: When the bells of the Holy Sepulchre on the other side of the road strike nine, eventually, Isolt watches the girl wake up again – lively, cheerful, as good as new. Just two tiny marks at her ankle are left to indicate the grave danger she was in mere hours before.

***

After a proper doctor – on request of the old woman – has examined the girl and declared that there is nothing amiss with her humours, Isolt bids the two pilgrims a hasty good-bye, slipping out into one of the Hospital’s countless hallways before either of them can stop her. Her head is spinning. She feels sickened by the thought of having to accept their gratitude for a miracle healing that might not have been entirely her doing – _can’t_ have been, truly, for she has never seen anyone recover from a snake bite so quickly. The girl should have had dizzy spells and bouts of fever for at least two more days, and the way the old woman regarded her told Isolt that she knew this as well.

 _Witchery, indeed._ Although of an altogether different kind. She isn’t sure yet what to make of this encounter. 

Hurrying down the stairs towards one of the side doors, she almost runs squarely into her brother. 

“Isolt!”

“Percy! What are you –” She narrowly avoids collision with the opposing wall and takes a moment to regain her composure, smoothing down her skirts. “Are you not supposed to be in the practice yard?” 

“No.” He opens the door for her in a grand, sweeping gesture likely copied from a decidedly fashionable knight. “Our sword master has come down with something – a winsome wench, probably, if his squires are to be believed. And there’s another council being held today, so most of the brethren are at the Tower of David.” 

They step out into the street, where the heat is already rising again. Linen-clad figures of all shapes and colours hurry to and fro, clouds of dust swirling around them; men-at-arms and veiled ladies on horseback try to push through the crowds forming here and there – first at a carpet seller’s table, then under an olive tree, in the shade: gathering and dissolving, flowing from place to place like a trickle of water exploring a dried-up riverbed. It is seamed and strange, yet undeniably home.

As they let themselves drift with the masses, Percy runs a hand through his honey-coloured hair. “Brother Clemens told me you … had a long night. So I thought, if I am already here, I might as well wait for you and escort you home.”

“ _Escort me home_? Oh Percy, you’re an _oaf_.” Isolt links her arm with his and laughs, slightly shaky after the events of the morning, but glad to be in familiar waters again. “Do I strike you as such a damsel in distress that I need escorting? Or are you still atoning for your faux-pas with the Lord Marshal?”

The memory still makes her cringe with embarrassment. 

Grappling for an evasion, Percival has the decency to look properly flustered, at least. “It’s – it’s a dangerous city, sister.”

“No doubt,” she agrees. “Which is why I am truly _very_ fortunate that I have such a valiant brother to protect me.”

“Valiant, indeed.” He grins at her, obviously relieved, before drawing himself up a little taller and nodding with great dignity at every blushing young maiden they pass in the street. “The next thing you know, poets will want to write songs about me. Perfect, pious Sir Percival – slayer of dragons and flower of chivalry.”

“And so very, very humble.”

Back in the day, her husband or her eldest brother would have reprimanded her for that, for the brazenly loose tongue that sometimes makes its way to the fore despite her best efforts. Percy, however, merely chuckles at the jab: coltish, good-natured Percy, who can be denser than a cartload of freshly-fired bricks, but never belittling or cruel. 

“The king is hosting a tournament,” he says as they round a corner near Furriers’ Street, the easy smile still sticking to his features. “It’s set to take place the week after Michaelmas – for celebration, apparently. The page boys from the palace said there will even be a joust.” Percy makes an admirable attempt at sounding only vaguely interested in the whole affair, but the exited twinkle in his eyes betrays him. “Do you think you’d like to go?”

Isolt’s first instinct is to say no. She has seen few tournaments in her life – fewer than half a dozen, really, and certainly none that could compare in scope or grandeur to an event orchestrated by the Court of Jerusalem – but she has never found that she cares much for this savage sort of entertainment. Though it undoubtedly looks beautiful: the striped tents and painted shields, the intricate gowns of the noble ladies, the brushed coats of the horses gleaming in the sun. 

_And it’s going to be all the city will be talking about for the next month or so_ , she reminds herself. _Everyone of importance will attend, and people will be vying for a place on the sidelines._ She suspects Percy and the Hospitallers are going to be there anyway, giving the Knights Templar fierce glances and tending to the injured. It would be foolish not to go with them – and her brother would be crushed.

“Well,” she says slowly. “It _is_ a rare occasion …”

Percy sends her a look of such agony that Isolt has to hide her smile behind her hand. Regardless, she pretends to be deep in contemplation a little longer – because keeping her little brother on tenterhooks is a pleasure every sister should allow herself, once in a blue moon.

There is no reckoning coming, not today; not while the light weaves white-gold fingers through the alleyways, chasing patches of shade between the dun-coloured buildings. The sky is bright blue and the day lies ahead of them in a mosaic of possibilities, and for a moment, it seems to Isolt as though they still have plenty of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we are: crawling our way forward through the plot like molasses trying to reach Antarctica. History-wise, there is not much to say this time. 
> 
> \- Medically speaking, the stuff mentioned in this chapter is, of course, complete and utter nonsense - albeit true, to an extent, in the sense of how medieval doctors apparently treated snake bites. (Yes, I actually looked that up. Woe to me.) 12th-century medicine seems to have consisted chiefly of praying and weird quackery, so please, children, do not try this at home.  
> \- What Isolt says about the expiring truce with Salah ad-Din is - according to Bernard Hamilton's _The Leper King and His Heirs_ \- true. We'll explore the implications of that in a bit.


	5. Ubi Solitudinem Faciunt Pacem Appellant – They Make a Desert and Call it Peace

The little-used tilting grounds outside of Jerusalem: late September 1186, mid-day. A blazing autumn sun looms high in the sky, striped tents and banners embroidered with a motley of heraldic devices flutter in the breeze; the crowds a rippling sea of colour. Peasant spectators and competitors alike are caked with dirt, and even in the upper rows, Tiberias can watch the dust settle on his boots with every pair of riders thundering past each other below. 

_If we stay here long enough_ , he thinks wearily, _never speaking, never moving, Salah ad-Din and his army – when the time comes – will have to dig us out of the dunes._

What a picture. Waiting for slaughter, for the delicate string of peace to snap. Tiberias is convinced that it cannot be long now: the kingdom is teetering on the edge of chaos, and it is only a matter of time until someone will decide to trip it up.

Michaelmas has passed him by in a flurry of arguments, meetings, and organisational duties. His clerks could barely keep track of the incoming demands and petitioners; there always seemed to be yet another soul who wanted something from him. A word, a piece of advice, money, favours, special dispensations … the list went on. He often worked late into the night, until his head ached with all the spilt words and his fingers were cramped around the quill. Half the population of Jerusalem appeared to have business with him these days – so many people, in fact, that he half-suspected Guy was ushering them over to him on purpose to keep him occupied. 

And now Tiberias sits here, between Roger de Moulins and Brother Johann, on the wooden stands of the Holy City’s tilting grounds, and watches morosely as yet another nameless knight in his coat of plates is unhorsed and tumbles with a shriek into the sand. The crowds cheer. The winner dismounts, takes off his helm and bows in the direction of the king. The noble ladies shower him with coquettish glances and smiles. He bows again. Two Hospitaller friars drag the loser from the battlefield. 

“They keep getting younger, do they not?” Roger de Moulins, the Grand Master of the Order of St John, looks at the spectacle happening below with the same expression he bestows on everything as of late: melancholy. “Poor lads down there. Hardly able to grow a beard, but already out there risking their lives and breaking their bones – and for what? A moment of glory. A lady’s goodwill, a lady’s kiss.”

“Not to mention the chest of gold bezants waiting for the victor at the end of it all,” Tiberias remarks dryly. “Chivalry, if I may remind you, is seldom a mere plague of the heart.”

“At any rate, my friend, it is a plague.” Roger sighs, twirling the end of his long white beard in his hand. “What a waste. Oh, what a waste.”

“Of funds? Certainly.” Tiberias shrugs, not much in the mood for the Grand Master’s pointless lamenting. To him, the knights look no younger than usual, and they are certainly not clueless boys anymore. They’re thriving, if anything: King Baldwin had no taste for violence, and though he made sure the palace’s practice yards were never empty, the hosting of tournaments was none of his preferred amusements. 

Tiberias agrees with him, on that front. Training for war is one thing – making the whole wretched affair a sport quite another. While they have had mêlées in the Levant for as long as anyone can remember, jousting hasn’t really come to be widely practised until some twenty years ago, and like most of the men left of the old guard, Tiberias has taken to sneering at those who follow this new fashion: at the brash young knights who have their chainmail tinted gold or blue by their blacksmiths and collect ladies’ favours on their arms like ill-bred minstrels in search of rags, and at the old ones trying desperately to recover a scrap of long-lost youth.

Another lance is broken, down in the field. A spindly little squire dashes into the tilting yard to furnish his master – some minor offspring of the Montfort line, if Tiberias isn’t mistaken – with a new one. Already, it is evident that the knight is keeping in the saddle only by sheer force of will: broken ribs from the impact, presumably, or a broken arm. Still, he wheels his horse around and faces his opponent once more. It’s like a mounted charge in battle: You do not get to shy away. 

_Horse can fail. Man can fail. Nerve can fail._

The Montfort boy is thrown out of the saddle at the next pass.

“The church says it is a sin to place one’s life in danger for gain or for pride,” Brother Johann says to no one in particular.

To his left, Roger de Moulins gravely nods his wizened head, while Tiberias finds himself momentarily incapable of answering. He is busy staring incredulously at the monstrosity that comes riding into the arena through one of the gates: Reynald of Châtillon. 

_God help us all. You really don’t have a scrap of dignity left, you fat fool, do you._

In his youth, the ‘Wolf of Kerak’, as he was known back then, was a man who – despite his low birth and evil deeds – still commanded respect. Tiberias distantly remembers attending a meeting of the _Haute Cour_ with one of his uncles when he was a boy barely of age: seeing the red-haired behemoth of a knight meet the lords’ and barons’ disapproving glances with his head held high evoked a form of grudging admiration in his green young self that disgusts him nowadays. The notion of personal freedom, defiance of public opinion, of not giving a fig for what anyone thinks of you – it is useless in this time and place, impracticable for people of their position; destructive, even. You cannot uphold a kingdom where everybody does what he wants. 

And yet, that seems to be what has consumed Reynald from the very beginning, what has eventually turned him mad during his imprisonment in Aleppo: the idea of breaking free from his duty to his family, his liege lord, his king; this insatiable thirst for life. And while Tiberias has nothing but contempt for the man – not even pity – he thinks he understands this well enough. Too well, perhaps. He merely knows better than to act upon it. 

Reynald, however, has never learnt a thing. The Lord of Outrejordain is past sixty now, and watching him ride into the field on a light chestnut courser that Tiberias is sure will buckle at the knees at any moment, it becomes evident that his sinful life of eating, drinking, and whoring is finally catching up with him. He sits in the saddle like an overfed inchworm: a boiling, squirming mass decked out in a Saracen helmet and colours so gaudy they defy description. He has always liked to adorn himself with the feathers of his enemies.

“Like a common thief,” Roger mutters beside Tiberias. “The man is a disgrace to knighthood, that’s what he is.”

“That may be so, my lord,” Brother Johann says mildly. “But he still is the favourite of the king.” 

With an inclination of his flaxen head, he indicates the royal box situated on the ranks to their right, from where Guy presides over the spectacle like a malevolent Arthur. Jerusalem’s Poitevin king appears to be in a good mood this afternoon: In a show of carefully practised noble reserve, he accepts the salutes of Reynald and his competitor, smiling genially as the two knights trot to their marks. Then he sits down again, beckoning his cupbearer for a chalice of iced wine. 

The city’s blue banners flap overhead. The queen is nowhere to be seen. 

Guy gives the jousters the signal to begin.

***

It is a tedious affair, this joust between Reynald and his opponent, pass after pass. Lances splinter and squires run to replace them, the shouts of the crowd grow tired and infrequent. Before long, the horses are flecked with lather, foaming at the mouth, and even the ladies have given up trying to brush the dust from their clothes. The day stretches on. Tiberias has to keep himself from falling asleep.

A storm saves them, in the end – drowning Guy’s feast of fools in volleys of thunder and pouring rain. A rare enough thing in this part of the world, but welcome after the long, dry summer. “A miracle!” someone cries; “An ill omen!” another. Servants hasten to pull down the tents; sodden grooms and squires lead away the horses, whose ears are pinned flat to their skulls in fright. Peasant children start hopping around in puddles. Bishop Heraclius hurries by with an expression of disgust. 

“The Lord smiled down on us today, sparing us this trial of our patience,” Brother Johann says as they slowly make their way down the stands and out of the arena, towards their own mounts. They have lost Roger somewhere; perhaps Gerard of Ridefort took the opportunity to tackle the old man into the mud, after all. It would hardly be beneath him to try. 

“Smiled?” Tiberias looks at the Hospitaller sceptically, using his sleeve to wipe the rain from his brow. “Seems to me rather like He is weeping – for our goodly king’s lack of foresight, I shouldn’t wonder. The crown’s coffers are nigh empty, and what does he do? Host a tournament!" He snorts. "Mark my words, my friend: Half these people will be starving, come winter.”

“They may be,” Brother Johann agrees. “They may well be.” 

But his attention has already strayed elsewhere, Tiberias can see it; his gaze alighted on something else. More immediate worries, it seems; though scarcely imaginable. 

“Look at that, my lord,” the Hospitaller says quietly. 

Tiberias doesn’t find himself to be too keen on the idea of standing around in the rain any longer than he has to, but does as he is bid nonetheless. In his strange, perplexing ways, the Hospitaller has often proved right in the past; and although Godfrey trusted the man’s instinct far more readily than he ever did, it would be ill-advised not to listen to him. 

Reluctantly, he follows Brother Johann’s eyes – to a snot-nosed stableboy, sullenly dragging a tired horse behind him through the downpour. It is a common enough picture; so common, in fact, that he almost turns away in disinterest. But then he recognises the animal’s chestnut coat, its high-strung, prancing walk and stiffly carried neck, and reconsiders. 

_The horse Châtillon rode in the joust._

And as the stableboy comes closer, Tiberias notices the wounds. There is blood smearing the flanks of Reynald’s red stallion, now gradually being washed away by the rain; fur and skin torn away in places to reveal open flesh. 

He feels himself inwardly – irrationally – recoil at the sight: like having been shown the crucified Christ. “That bastard,” he says flatly. “Thinks himself apt enough to compete in the lists, yet uses his spurs as though he’s a butcher by trade. You’re supposed to _nudge_ the horse with them, damn it, not kick it until it bleeds.” 

The Hospitaller shrugs, putting on his gloves with careful nonchalance. “The pain made it wild, my lord,” he says. “I suppose that was exactly what Reynald had in mind – a little unpredictability. A little chaos. Digging in his heels to send the beast into a craze.” 

_Like he digs his heels into our neighbours_ , Tiberias thinks bleakly, _kicking and boasting and yapping until things escalate._

An inexplicable sense of dread takes hold of his bones at the thought. Reynald has already drawn first blood: there are new raids to come, undoubtedly, now that Guy has let his favourite hound from the leash again and will soon find himself in dire need of funds. The kneeling, the oath-swearing was just the beginning; watching the boy lead the ruined horse out of sight, Tiberias cannot help but feel as though an unbidden heavenly messenger had gripped him by the shoulder, turned him forcibly towards the abyss and said: _This is the end. Take a good look, soldier, so you’ll remember it._

“My lord?” a small voice pipes up by his elbow. “If you please – I – I brought your palfrey? So you can return to the palace – i-in case you wish to?”

Tiberias turns, somewhat startled at the interruption, and manages to catch himself before a snide remark – something decidedly unchivalrous about whether he only has stuttering half-wits squiring for him these days – can pass his lips. Instead, he grumbles a “hm” and even a grudging “thank you”, before taking the reins from the boy and sending him on his way. 

The clouds keep darkening above them. He checks the horse twice to make sure there are no nails driven through its hooves, no bloodied sides or blinded eyes. Then he calls himself a lunatic and stops. 

“Well,” he growls, at last, thinking of the hideous comedy of it all. “If the Lord of Outrejordain can ride no better than some feeble-minded goatherd, then perhaps next time they should put him on a mule instead.”

Brother Johann smirks at that, in that impish manner of his which often leaves people wondering whether he is in on a jest they’re not even aware of. “You should suggest it to the Master of Horse, my lord. A few pieces of silver might incline him to agree to your proposition.”

“Ah,” Tiberias says, half-grinning, before pulling himself with a slight wince into the saddle. “Perhaps I will.”

***

By the time he reaches the palace, afternoon has melted into evening, and Jerusalem has once more revealed what it really is: a flea-ridden sinkhole of human dreams.

The narrow streets are clogged with groups of people fleeing the rain and thunder, scurrying unhappily towards the city gates; with knights’ entourages making for their sleeping quarters or the nearest tavern, shoving ragged mendicant friars and traders’ ox-carts out of their way. Tempers are heated still – what should have been a glorious day for king and kingdom now ends unceremoniously with man and beast alike trudging ankle-deep through the mud. 

Tiberias cannot pretend to be much aggrieved by this turn of events. Though there are doubtlessly more pleasant things than shivering in your drenched clothes and cooled-off chainmail like a drowned rat. 

_Another reason to keep our wars to the warm months._ He grimaces, thinking of what lies ahead. Perhaps they’ll have another winter, if nothing else – another winter of relative calm and peace; a winter under Guy the Glib and his court of cretins and selfish snakes. Christ Jesu, what a world they have made for themselves. 

Near the David Gate, he passes through a throng of knights and squires of the military orders – Hospitallers, Templars, knights of the Holy Sepulchre and even ones of St Lazarus all among them – and for a split second, he believes to have spotted Isolt’s brother in the crowd. But then the golden mop of hair is gone again, and Tiberias tells himself not to wonder. Better leave it alone. Better not think about the girl at all. 

Some days it works better than others.

***

The halls and passages of the palace are bathed in a strange underwater-light at this hour. The braziers and torches that line the walls are yet to be lit, and the curtains and patterned tiles between themselves produce a subtle sheen not unlike the blue-green feathers of the peacocks Sibylla keeps in one of the gardens. A deep-sea palace: but not quiet. Oh, far from it.

Ever since Guy announced that there was to be a tournament in his honour (“The European kings are having them left and right, after all!”), the court of Jerusalem has been buzzing like a beehive. Holed up in the Marshal’s Office for the better part of his time, Tiberias has had to witness blissfully little of it, but even he could not fail to hear the constant rattle of the merchants’ carts on the cobblestones outside, bringing wines from the Jehoshaphat valley, honey from the Judaean hills and God knows what else the king ordered to keep his noble visitors entertained. Tonight, Guy will have to try especially hard to please them: all the chattering knights and ladies at high table, who have come so far to show their goodwill towards him, only to be greeted with a disappointing – if not disastrous – start to the festivities. 

_They shall soon learn that this is all they’ll ever receive from that new king of ours_ , Tiberias muses darkly, climbing the stairs leading up to his own apartments. _Promises upon promises – and never a deed to follow them._

He knows it doesn’t matter, though. Regardless of his personal failings, Guy’s current position on the throne could not be more secure if one had nailed him to the damn thing. All competition he used to have has fled or withdrawn, and Tiberias can think of no suitable candidate for the crown – sufficiently noble and close to the royal line, wise enough, brave enough, hale enough – that the _Haute Cour_ would approve of under the present circumstances. There is no way out of it. If Guy lives, his unquenchable thirst for power will eventually wreck the kingdom, and even if he were to die, the ensuing scramble for the throne would leave nothing but destruction in its wake. It would hardly be worth it – and who could say under whose thumb they’d end up then?

With a sigh, he opens the door to his rooms. Some peace and quiet, at last. No visitors, no crushing responsibilities – for but an hour or two, since he’ll doubtlessly be expected to appear at high table sometime in the evening. Wandering over to the sooty fireplace, he wonders, faintly, just how many friends of old he will have to witness this time practically falling over themselves to lick the king’s boots. 

Christ’s wounds, he is sick of all the faces already. Without Godfrey and his black sense of humour for company, there is little enjoyment in banquets and making merry, and Tiberias doesn’t like the thought of getting drunk alone. For drunk he will certainly have to be if they expect him to bear their talk yet another night, silent and with gritted teeth.

He feeds the dying embers in the grate some more wood and kindling, before watching abstractedly how the flames flicker to life again, filling their corner of the room with a soft golden light. He drags a chair over to the fire and stretches out his legs. Perhaps the warmth will help to drive the chill out of his bones and mind. Perhaps – 

But he doesn’t even have time to finish the thought. Out of the corner of his eye, Tiberias sees one of the blue-liveried servants closing in on him, hands clasped tidily behind his back. 

“My lord?”

He curses inwardly. _Not a moment’s peace in this wretched place._

“Yes?” he allows then, irritable. “What is it?”

“A messenger brought this for you, my lord.” A gloved hand extends towards him a small scroll of parchment: unsealed, merely bound with a nondescript piece of string. 

Tiberias reaches for the message, frowning, and waits until the door has firmly closed behind the servant before he begins to unfold it. Unsealed letters usually speak trouble. 

At the first cursory glance, he almost thinks it is from his wife. Eschiva doesn’t write to him often; but when she does, it is generally because something important has happened that is either of direct concern to him or that she doesn’t feel equipped to handle on her own. The hand seems similar enough – a broad, loopy scrawl that looks memorable but seldom-practised – and the turn of phrase sounds equally stiff and formal. As though the person writing to him thinks of him as one would think of a stranger.

_To the Lord Tiberias_ , it says, _Marshal of the City of Jerusalem and Prince of Galilee._

_My lord, I hope you will be able to forgive me the boldness of addressing myself thusly to you. I am aware it is not seemly; the matter, however, is urgent and can wait no further._

_I hesitate to ask this of you, since I know you to be a cautious man with more than just a good name at stake. But ask you I must, even if you decide to refuse my invitation._

“My _good name_ – ha!” Tiberias mutters under his breath. “You must be new here, my friend.”

But at that point he is nearly certain about who the mysterious writer is, and the rest of the letter only serves to confirm his suspicion.

_I have returned to the Holy City today. Word about this, I fear, will get out soon, and I know the palace will not look kindly upon my presence in the city. So, if you will – that is, if you are still here and have not yet retreated to your estates in the north, and if you can do so without compromising your position at court – visit me at my father’s house tomorrow. I dare not speak of the things I wish to discuss with you in this letter lest it falls into the wrong hands, which is why I shall only say so much: It is your counsel that I seek, and, if possible, your help. If not for myself, then perhaps for my father’s sake. I do not know how to proceed._

_I would be much obliged to you in case you decided to come._

_Humbly,  
B._

After he has finished reading it, Tiberias stares at the letter for quite a bit longer than necessary. He feels an odd surge of guilt at the words – all those hollow, carefully compiled words, that say very little about the matter at hand but much about how Balian perceives him. The boy’s beating around the bush almost makes him angry; _what have I done_ , he wonders, _to warrant such chilly politeness from the son of an old friend?_

The answer, however, is already there at the back of his mind. _I have done nothing. I have watched and waited, like a craven, and now he isn’t sure if he can rely upon me._

Tiberias finds the thought uncomfortably familiar. 

With a flick of his wrist, he throws the letter into the fire. May the flames have at the words, so what remains of them is only what was said, not how it was said. Tiberias, for one, doesn’t want to remember it. Like his late father, Balian is a proud man – it doesn’t become him to tie his quill in a knot and cower like this. 

_I’ll have to do better by him, then._

Rubbing his twinging leg, Tiberias stands up, at last; gathers himself. He is half sorry to leave the warmth of the fire behind, but what needs to be done needs to be done, and he has an inkling that he might not have been the only one who received a message from Balian today. With a last speculative glance at the burnt leftovers of the letter, he limps out the door, bending his tired steps towards the queen’s quarters. 

It isn’t Sibylla, however, who he meets there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah ... well. I don't know if anybody still reads this, but in case someone does: apologies, again, for the long wait. Life got in the way. I'll try to be more consistent in my writing habits for this story, though I can't promise anything. 
> 
> History-wise, there is - again - not much to say in regard to this chapter; it's pretty much all fiction. 
> 
> \- A quick note on the tournament: From what I've read, they did have tournaments in the Crusader States - some sources even suggest that the first joust recorded by chroniclers was held in Antioch in 1054 - so it's something that they might plausible have enjoyed, especially flashy personalities like Guy de Lusignan. It must be noted, though, that the concepts of chivalry, courtly love and so on were somewhat in their infancy in the late 12th century (their heyday being between the 13th and 15th century), so I tried to tone it all down a notch for this story.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far:  
> Thank you so much for reading, I hope you liked it! As English is not my first language, I'd appreciate it immensely if you pointed out any awkward wording or mistakes of any kind that you may or may not have stumbled across in this text.  
> The same applies, by the way, to any glaring historical inaccuracies that I might have overlooked. I strive for a measure of historical accuracy in my writing, but I'm not a historian, just a nerdy literature student, so if you have any complaints in that regard, feel free to correct me. In any case, comments - be they constructive or not - are much appreciated :)  
> Until next time - have a nice day :)


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